If Angels Should Fall
by VampireUnicorn
Summary: AU. The year is 1805. Deep in the Egyptian sands, faced with inevitable death, and haunted by a terrible past, Pegasus finally speaks. VAMPIRES! Numerous Pegasus pairings.
1. Part I: Prologue

Authoress's Note: PLEASE READ

            1: I don't own "Yu-Gi-Oh." "Behind Blue Eyes" is by the Who, so I don't own it either. I think it is fitting, and if you need me to explain why I chose "Behind Blue Eyes," ask me. I will enjoy telling you the obvious reason.

            2: I have combined Pegasus's names, Maxamillion Pegasus and Pegasus J. Crawford. I have no clue what the J stands for, so I made it up. For the purpose of this story, he is Maxamillion James Pegasus nicknamed Maxam. I hate the nickname "Peggy." It reminds me of that game with the wood and nails and rubber bands.

            3: This is AU. It also contains various pairings. I have mentioned God a lot in this section, but I want everyone to know that it is very appropriate for the mood and setting Pegasus grew up in.

            4: Please review. I look forward to feedback, even flames. I can improve the quality of my work if people tell me what I am doing wrong and there is enough evidence to support his or her statement.

            5: This will eventually be rated R. This section is what I think as of a mere PG, but it gets a lot worse. The rating will start at PG-13.

"No one knows what it's like  
To be the bad man,  
To be the sad man  
Behind blue eyes…"

– the Who

_            Ever since I was a child, I have loved – envied – the birds. They are free as they fly in the sky, so unrestrained, that I feel a kinship with them. I, who have been restrained my entire life. There are cold iron bars that surround my heart, their power growing as my last chance of escape dwindles._

_            My name is Maxamillion Pegasus. I am somewhere in the Egyptian sands; I know not where. It is very dark here, the only light coming from the small barred window. All I have is this one notebook and the shirt on my back, for everything else has been taken from me, even my soul. They broke me in a room further down with whips and wheels until I begged for God's forgiveness._

_            "What God is that?" he asked. The quiet one always cloaked in shadow when I see him; he wears a turban around his head and I see a glittering gold around his neck when he moves. His face is always in darkness. "Who is your God?"_

_            I do not have more than a few days in the living world. Hunger has wasted my body to where it is now; I haven't the strength to lift myself from the floor. It is my will that writes this now. _

_            Whoever reads these words – oh dear God I hope someone does – holds in his or her hands the confession of my life. It is the year 1805. I am Maxamillion James Pegasus, son of James Pegasus from __Brittany__ and Alexia from __Greece__. I am twenty-four years of age, the third son. My homeland is __America__, far from where the rest of my blood resides. My family is very rich and we have our home in an isolated manor in the mountains. _

_            These are the last words that I am to write._


	2. Part I: Chapter 1

Authoress's Note:

1. Don't own "Yu-Gi-Oh" or "Behind Blue Eyes."

2. I decided to post two chapters so I could get the chapter options.

3. This is on the upside of PG-13. It's got a little mention of blood and death, but it leaves a lot to your imagination. Honestly, if you cringe at the word "blood," beware. This is not violent. It is only a brief statement.

4. Please enjoy the story and if you like, give me input. Thanks. : - )

"No one knows what it's like  
To be hated,  
To be fated  
To telling only lies…"

- the Who

_            They say that on the day I was born, there was a great blizzard. It was the month of June, the fifteenth in fact, and blizzards just didn't happen. The winds rose when my mother started her labor and even our great manor threatened to buckle under its strength. My father and grandfather had poured their lifeblood into the mortar that held the house together when they came over._

_            Though I was not yet born, I can see everything that happened on that day. In the great hall where there were paintings of all of those in my family, a wind swept up and shook their frames. My older sister told me that she heard wailing in her sleep. As she stepped into the hall, the forms in the pictures contorted and looked like they were in great pain. Her twin sister went out into the hall moments after her. Gabrielle and Muriel stood there for a few minutes._

_            In the far window, a figure was forming. It was too dark to describe his features, Gabrielle told me. She remembered him walking toward them with a slow, steady stride. She couldn't move and there were strange symbols in gold flashing over the walls. In the next instant Muriel died, her features etched in fear. Gabrielle let out a sharp scream and Nathan, our oldest brother, drove the stranger back into Hell._

_            When I was born, my grandfather was brutally murdered by a servant who called himself Blue. He was a very strange young boy, about ten years older than I, and he had hair and eyes that matched his name. He carved his name into the corpse and there was blood all over the walls. My mother screamed when she saw it._

_            Blue was smart enough not to stick around after he did it._

_            My birth was bloodless, and I was pale and smooth as I was held up to her. Most eyes of young children are blue, but mine were amber resin. The hair coming out of my head was pure white; the midwife thought I was dead until I moved ever-so-slightly. _

_            Not even my beloved Cynthia could repress a shudder when I touched her in the end, and that was after I made an effort to be like everyone else. Perfection always startles, don't you think? It might even be the reason why I am sitting in this cell with hundreds of fresh pages waiting for me to fill them. _

_            He came past the cell while I was writing; I felt him even before I saw him. He is waiting out there for me. I don't know what he wants, but I hear his silent commands in my head. He bids me close the book and surrender to him. There is someone with him, a shadow standing right behind him. I caught a flash of blue when the cloak moved._

_            It might be the time of my death now, before I am even done with my confession. Maybe it is too late for me to live. _


	3. Part I: Chapter 2

Authoress's Note: OKAY! HERE IS THE NEXT CHAPTER! 

This is a little more    intense than the past chapters, and I will say that the rating is about PG-14. In a few chapters, it WILL GO TO R, but it will take a little bit. 

Also, just so you people know, I actually have all 20 pages of Part I done and I am working on Part II, which is halfway done. There will be about four parts to this, all with their own chapters and little things going on. And when I do get to Part II, the flashbacks will get slightly confusing…

Don't own "Yu-Gi-Oh" or "Behind Blue Eyes"

"But my dreams –   
They aren't as empty  
As my conscience seems to be…"

- the Who

_            Dear God, they have just left me. I cannot help but shudder; the hunger has left me and there is blood staining my lips from where the cloaked one pressed his wrist to my mouth. I have never been so tempted before, not even when I was told to smash my violin to bits. _

_            They came to me with a strange knife. The cloaked one ripped my soiled lace shirt off and held my arms behind my back. There were words that were spoken; I don't pretend to have understood them. It was an ancient tongue that has not been spoken for over a thousand years. The knife cut into my chest and I thought he would kill me, but there is now a horrible eye. The wound seemed to glow and heal before my eyes and it left long, black lines. There is blood on my chest. Whenever I move to stab myself in the heart with the pencil, a searing pain goes through me and the curséd eye glows._

_            It was not the end. They bled me until I thought I would faint and poured the basin into a jar. The cloaked one pressed it to his lips and drank. He passed it to his leader, who held it in his hands. There was silent communication between them for a moment before he came at me. I was pushed to the ground and I thought I was going to die; there was a wrist pressed to my mouth and no matter how hard I tried the blood was forced into my mouth._

_            I screamed as the blood went down my throat; it seared my insides and filled me more than the food I had as a living being, as a mortal. I had been cut before, but never had I partaken of the forbidden drink. _

_            After it was done, the cloaked one left me alone with the dark-skinned demon. _

_            "Why me?"_

_            He ran his hands through my long white hair. I thought he would kiss me then, and the thought terrified me more than anything. _

_            "You were destined to come here. Destiny directed you to me."_

_            "Destiny never was for me. She never cares about anything but amusement. Why won't you leave me alone to die? You enjoy torturing me."_

_            "We must be both strong and beautiful to survive. You must be as strong and as beautiful as I am if you are to live. That was the way under the Egyptian Pharaohs, and it is the way it is in our world."_

_            What is our world, I thought. I am still wondering what that meant. Perhaps someday I will know, maybe as I am dying._

_            "Who are you?"_

_            "I am called many things. You will call me master."_

_            He was gone before I realized there was no one there._

_            I remember wearing ruffled shirts and seeing beauty everywhere around me as a child. I climbed a hill that was close to home, somewhere my parents told me not to go. I did not have to worry about the violin or the piano on that hill. Languages of the animals and birds buzzed in my ears; I was aware of everything._

_            When I was fourteen, I was a rebellious soul. My hair was quite long by then, down to my waist, and I let it blow free. My brothers mocked me and called me a beautiful little girl; they kept their dark locks a little past their shoulders and tied it back with silk ribbons as they rode into town and tried to woo girls._

_            On that particular day, I had had a not-too-pleasant run-in with my French tutor, who yelled at me in the language and taught me words that never should be heard in public when I messed up in my grammar. The language was easy for me, but not so for the other children in my family. I was the only one who understood all of it, and I had told him in perfect French that I was going for a walk. He had rolled off even more curses then; I was not there to hear it._

_            I sat in a tree and brooded for what seemed like hours. I don't remember much that went on that time; I became aware of myself and there was a voice. It whispered in my ear and told me I was special; it was speaking in some strange language but I understood the meaning of what it was saying. A girl's voice, a voice I would know later as Cynthia's. It entranced me and bade me to jump off the steep hill and break my neck on the rocks below._

_            I do not deny I wanted to do it; the voice was almost impossible to ignore. But even as it told me to do this, the counter-spell rode through my mind. I heard the most beautiful singing I had ever heard in my life. I opened my eyes and there was a girl dancing in the grassy expanse at the top of the hill; she was wearing fine clothing but obviously cared for none of it._

_            Love made me fall out of the tree. She was very beautiful and she danced across the expanse of grass; brown, curly hair that was done in a loose circle braid. The hair that fell from it was braided; she had woven blue flowers into her hair. _

_            She did not notice when I fell, and I lay there watching her weave her spell. It was Mayday that day, I remembered; my brothers were playing pranks in the town with the girls they liked. _

_            Love has a way of finding you no matter how isolated you are, no matter how many walls you put up to keep others out. Love was what I felt up there, and nothing else in the world seemed to matter. A string pulled me toward her. She was dancing closer to the tree. Then she stopped._

_            "Oh, I am sorry. I did not know someone was here." She blushed and I stood. I brushed off my coat. "I know the dancing wasn't—_

_            I turned around. She stared into my amber eyes; I stared into her baby blue eyes. I finished what she was about to say. "—acceptable."_

_            My hand fingered for a rose on the wild bush near the tree. I silently asked the plant for the blossom and my hand snapped it off. "For you, milady." I bowed to her. "You are as beautiful as the rose."_

_            Our fingers touched, and I saw the blush on her face grow as she accepted the rose. Her fingers held it like it would crush if she moved._

_            "Is it the young Pegasus's custom to hide in trees all day?"_

_            Her voice was the most melodic thing I had ever heard. I knew the accent; it was British. More and more were flocking to the areas that had little to do with the Revolution because they had been driven out of their homes._

_            "Is it Urania Fay's custom to waste away in the sun?"_

_            I knew Urania Fay; her parents had often come to dine with us. When they visited __New Orleans__ several years ago, Urania had stayed with us. I barely recognized her now. I remembered that her mother and father forbade her to go outside during the day so she would not tan, but now her skin was darker from the light. I, however, was so pale that the sun seemed to pass right through me._

_            "Yes. Besides, no one is going to care. My parents are dead."_

_            I brought her home and my father and mother welcomed her. The thin girl was given cakes and tea. She recounted the story somberly; the joy that she had known on the hill was gone like an illusion she had lost hold of._

_            "Three weeks ago, a strange young man who called himself Midnight Blue came to the inn. Mother recognized him as the one who murdered Marque Pegasus, but Father wouldn't listen to her. It was very interesting because Midnight Blue paid for his room in advance with pure gold._

_            "After dark, Mother told me that she needed water from the well. When I got back, the inn was silent. They were lying on the ground with horrible expressions on their faces and there was blood everywhere. I ran from it. It took me about three days to reach the closest town, and I had no money for lodgings or food. I was surprised that there were people looking for me; they said I had killed my parents. Midnight Blue had beaten me to the town and spread the story. There was nowhere for me to go."_

_            I remember that night as if it were a dream. I awoke and I was standing in the doorway of the room she slept in. My clothes were on, but I wore no jacket. The lace shirt billowed around me in the cool mountain air. It must have been an hour that I stood there; the full moon's light was streaming through the window by the time she awoke._

_            She stirred in the bed and I was aware of her eyes watching me. She sat up and stared at me. The nightgown she was wearing dazzled me. It reminded me of the legends of King Arthur. She was a medieval princess._

_            "Come with me," I told her. I held my hand out to her. _

            _Urania stared at me with her beautiful eyes for only a moment before her lips parted. The entire world hung suspended for the moment when she took a breath and replied to me. Those words meant something infinitely greater than a mere walk._

_            "Yes."_

_Sparks__ seemed to fly between our hands. I led her to the open window and looked down at the ten-foot drop. The manor was surrounded by trees; I used the trees often when I planned __midnight__ escapes. I climbed onto the thick stone rail and held out my hand. My fingers grabbed onto a good-sized, sturdy branch. I let myself fall against the tree, and then swung myself up until I was in it. _

_            "I had no idea you were such a cat, young Pegasus." Her face was incredibly clear to me in that moonlight. I scarce could climb down because I was looking into her eyes._

_            When I reached the bottom, I saw she was waiting for me. Her form was in shadow; I wondered if I had the strength to catch her. Well, it was too late for that. She had already jumped and she was coming at me. I broke her fall, and her weight against me caused me to fall backward. I was careful not to make a noise, not even to cry out, though her elbow was in my side and I felt like screaming._

_            She lay against me for a short while, staring into my eyes, before she found where she was. I saw her blush and she got off me. Catlike, I jumped to my feet. She grabbed my hand and I led her away from the manor._

_            We wove through amber fields and forest area until I heard the familiar sound of a waterfall. Oft I had come here and sat against the cool rocks, sometimes even stripping bare to swim in the water._

_            The latter of which I was planning right now._

_            I took off my jacket and smiled at her. I felt almost embarrassed taking off my shirt in front of her. Next I took off the boots, and, in a precarious moment, I decided to keep the tights on, which would dry by morning if luck was with me._

_            Luck was always with me in those days._

_            I dove into the deep pool and came up with a smile on my face only to find her in the water with me. She kept her body below the surface; her undergarments were white. I had never seen them before, nor had I ever thought about seeing them. My brothers saw them almost every night as they combed the bars for women to take to bed, women that were paid a lot of money for their trouble._

_            She splashed me. I sputtered and stared at her. _

_            "Well, aren't you going to fight back?"_

_            "It's not proper to raise a hand against a lady."_

_            "Honestly, young Pegasus, you're too polite. Live a little; etiquette is only used during fancy dinner parties. All of you upper-classmen are so uptight. Now come have some real fun for a change!"_

_            I raised my hand against her and sent a shower of freezing water onto her. I ducked under to prevent her from catching me again and went under the waterfall. My white hair was plastered to my head. She was nowhere in sight. I heard something behind me and the next thing I knew I was being held under the water by her. I came up sputtering; she came up laughing._

_            Her expert hands wove through my hair. I was now lying on a rock, and I was very wet. She was braiding my hair, of course, and my hair was as long as any girl's. It was almost as long as hers; she had hair so long she could wrap it around her head. I turned away from her and looked out at the water. There was someone watching us from the shadows and whoever was watching was laughing at us. I turned, but there was no one there._

_            "What is it?"_

_            "I think someone is watching us."_

_            "Why do you care if anyone watches us? Does it matter to you?" Her fingertips caressed my face._

_            I looked down. "No."_

_            She turned my face toward her and looked into my eyes. "Then why do you care?"_

_            We kissed; I let her fingers move through my hair. The braid was coming undone, but I didn't care. I was kissing a goddess, a muse._

_            I damned my heritage in that moment. I did not want the manor any longer. I would not stay there with the rest of my family like some dying ghost anymore. My parents disapproved of me for my art, which, by the age of fourteen, I had to hide under my mattress. I asked my brothers to smuggle paints into the house for me, and they did so as long as I never told our parents about their antics in town. Not that I knew anything._


	4. Part I: Chapter 3

Authoress's Note: Okay. This is going to be really long…

1. I am sorry I haven't updated (if anyone cares). I have been really busy lately. The teachers all schedule tests (a "coincidence") during the same week. It might take me a while to get the next chapter up, too, because next week is Mabon and I will be at a religious festival. I will try to update as often as I possibly can, and I need to resume writing this, too; it's not like I have my own working computer. 

2. I don't own "Yu-Gi-Oh" or "Behind Blue Eyes."

3. I really enjoy feedback. Please give me more. If there is something in my story that needs improving, such as character development, please tell me what I need to improve. Please note that the incomplete sentences were written on purpose. I also really like semicolons, but I try not to use more than about five per paragraph.

4. **THIS IS THE LAST CHAPTER THAT WILL BE RATED PG-13. THE R RATING WILL BE ONLY A PRECAUTION SO PEOPLE WHO ARE ON THE SQUEAMISH SIDE ARE NOT OFFENDED BY SOME OF THE CONTENT. **

5. _Merci beaucoup to all of those who have been reading my story. I hope you enjoy it and accept my interpretation of Pegasus's character._

"I have hours, only lonely;   
My love is vengeance  
That's never free…"

- the Who

_            I fell asleep after I wrote the last part. The bloodletting made me very tired, and it was all I could do not to fall asleep. Now I am awake again, and it is almost dark. Soon it will be too dark for me to see this page; last night there was a full moon, so I could see, but tonight I do not know. My limbs feel like there are leaden weights attached to them. I can hardly move._

_            Yet I can still write. Even if he broke my hands, I would still write despite the pain. It is imperative that I finish, though my ghost might have to come back and take up the pen for me to do so. The eye burns every time I try to move._

_            When I fell asleep, there was a golden haze everywhere around me. I saw something in the darkness. It was a giant black horse with wings and there was gold light all around it. Its eyes were red, and there was all of this black smoke coming toward me each time it beat its wings._

_            It had talons instead of hooves; I saw my son carried away, and there was a great scream coming from his mouth. The boy is only six; I do hope no harm has come to him. I sent him to __England__ to be safe while I went to __Egypt__ as Cynthia told me to all those years ago. Most of what she said to me in those last days was the ramblings of a dying woman._

_            And what happened to Urania? Dare I write her terrible fate? But I must, for I had a part in her death. Maybe it was her destiny; if it had not happened, I would never have met Cynthia. I would not have had a son._

_            A year passed. Urania was soon to be seventeen, and I was fifteen years old. There were rumors of our affections spreading around by way of the servants, and we were eventually confronted by my father. Instead of damning us, he was very happy. It shouldn't have surprised me as much, for as the youngest son, I would have nothing when he died. I realized this later that night._

_            Seldom had we gone to the moonlit pool since that first night when she braided my hair; I tasted her lips on the hilltops. The next day, she wanted to climb higher than we had ever gone before. I could see her excitement. The trek would take an entire day to complete._

_            I remember how tired I was that night. The sweet perfume of the air drifted in through the window, and the curtains billowed. My vision was blurred from tears; I was not sad. My eyes had a tendency back then to tear, and I still don't know why they did that. Maybe it was that I had nothing to cry over until later._

_            Though sleep threatened to claim me, I heard leaves rustling outside. My eyes opened slowly, and I saw her form in the window. She was not in a nightgown; she was in her undergarments. I blushed slightly at this and sat up. I slept in tights. _

_            She sat on the edge of my bed._

_            "Tonight was the night. Do you remember it?"_

_            "Yes, I remember."_

_            "You came to me in the darkness and bade me to come with you. Did you really want to tie my fate to yours?"_

_            I took her in my arms and held her against me. "Yes. I have never met a girl before as beautiful as you are. You're something special, so very different from them."_

_            In a way, I suppose my love of Urania prepared me for Cynthia. Compared to my beloved Cynthia, Urania was a mere shadow. If Urania was the Lady Guinevere, Cynthia was Queen Helen of __Sparta__. _

_            "How am I different?"_

_            "You are exotic. You think differently from them. You wear male garments when we explore. Urania, what do you seek?"_

_            She looked into my eyes. "I want something to drown out my dreams of what happened. Something wants me to remember, but I don't want to! There is a voice in my mind that shows me images of how they were murdered…"_

_            I stared at her. "You hear a voice?"_

_            "Yes." She surrendered herself to an embrace. Her lips found mine and gave me a deep, passionate kiss. "I love you, Maxam," she whispered._

_            "I love you, too." An idea was forming in my mind. I wanted to go back to that pool. My mind lurked in the darkness… "We should go back to the pool tonight." _

_            We stood together and I clasped her hand in mine. Slowly, I put on my boots so I would not make a sound. We climbed onto my balcony and I stood on the branch that hangs over it, the branch I would never let anyone cut away. It was my escape. _

_            I wonder if it is still there._

_            Urania was beautiful in the moonlight; half of her hair was braided and the other half was left hanging free. My feet led me to the spot with a mind of their own, but my eyes were always on her. She didn't notice my eyes until we reached the water and I took my boots off._

_            After we swam, we rested on the rocks. She looked into my eyes._

_            "Pegasus was a winged horse. Bellerophon rode him in battle and slew the Chimera. Pegasus was care for by the nine muses, ridden by the Muse Urania to the mountains where a spring burst forth from his feet."_

_            I stared at her. "But that isn't the whole story. Pegasus was born of evil. When Medusa was killed, he came out of her blood. White as snow, fast as lightning, damned even though he was used to slay monsters."_

_            "But he rose higher than the Gods!" she protested. "He was made a constellation by order of Zeus! He was Zeus's thunder-bearer!"_

_            "It doesn't change his origins. It doesn't mean he isn't damned."_

_            She looked away, obviously biting back an insult. I let my fingers trace her arms. I tried to remember the myth of Urania. She was the Greek Muse of Astronomy._

_            "The heavens are opened and the future told in her celestial sphere." I saw her head turn slightly; she was listening. "She was the one who saved Pegasus from the gab fly Zeus set upon him. She wept for the fallen horse in the spring they had created. The magic waters of the spring gave her the gift of song. She kissed the winged horse before he died…"_

_            Urania turned toward me and looked into my eyes. "Yes."_

_            We kissed again, and it is a kiss I will always hold in my memory. Not even Cynthia could take the kiss from my mind. Her lips tasted like raspberries, and her mouth parted and our innocent kiss changed to something far deeper. I tasted blood in my mouth and immediately knew something was wrong. Urania was not kissing back. I jumped back and stared at the fallen body; her eyes were closed and there was blood coming out of her open mouth. _

_            He was standing where she had once been, a bloody dagger in his hands. I took a step back, but he did not rush toward me to silence me. Instead, he took the blade to his mouth and licked her blood off, then picked up the body and gave her a deep kiss. I realized she was not dead yet, only paralyzed, and the thought made me sick._

_            Midnight Blue's hair was a pale blue and his eyes were the color of a clear blue sky. I could not take my eyes off what he was doing to her; I was frozen. I saw him push her hair back and he went for her throat._

_            I screamed._

_            The forest held the scream so no one could hear it. He dropped her body and walked toward me. I tried to run, but I was too terrified to move. His mouth was stained with blood. _

_            He ran his hands through my hair before tilting my head to the side. "You are beautiful, my little angel, so beautiful I might not kill you… yet."_

_            His mouth clamped onto my neck. I felt a hard pressure has he drove his fangs in. The forest seemed to pulsate with energy and a shimmering was coming from the trees. I would know it later as "aura."_

_            "Please no…" I whispered to him. _

_To my surprise, he obeyed. I thought he was finished with me. I cried out when his fangs left my neck, for without them embedded in me I felt an absence. He drew his wrist toward his mouth and let his fangs slash at it. I was terrified, for I knew what he would do with the blood. My own mouth was stained with Urania's._

_            In the instant his wrist touched my mouth, I knew what peace could mean. It was as close as the wrist that fed me his blood. How to describe the taste! If you have stepped in a cold waterfall, so cold it feels like tiny daggers stinging you, that is what it tasted like. Like a freezing waterfall, every drop sent ecstasy through my body._

_            Forcefully, he shoved me away. My head connected with a tree and the world started to spin until all I could see was darkness._

_            When I awoke, I gasped for breath that didn't seem to be in my lungs. There was pain in my body, and my vision was so sharp that my eyes hurt. Poison, I thought. It has to be poison. But I was not in the clearing, I was in my room, and warm blankets were on me. Everything in the room had a shimmering to it, an aura._

_            The sunlight was so bright that I had to shield my eyes. Half-blind, I stumbled out of bed and made the room dark. No one was there, but I saw evidence of what may have been a week or so in unconsciousness. Someone had a pitcher and cloth by the bed, and that someone was not in the room anymore. _

_            I looked in the mirror. I was so different that I barely recognized myself. I looked starved; I was too thin. My skin was pale. I brushed my hair aside and saw two needle-like scars from where it had bitten me. I looked into the eyes of my mirror image; my eyes were slightly different, a dark amber ring around my irises and a slightly paler amber on the inside. _

_            The room tilted around me and I rested my hand on the wall for support. I heard someone about to enter the room, and I stumbled back to the bed._

_            Gabrielle came in. Of course it was Gabrielle; no one else would have cared if I were dying in bed._

_            "Maxam?" she asked me._

_            Maxam is a nickname I picked up when I was about five years old. My father called me Maxamillion. My mother called me "little boy," and my siblings called me Maxam or Peggy. I hate the nickname Peggy. It reminds me of a board game. I was only called Peggy when they wanted to annoy me._

_            "Gabrielle."_

_            "We thought you were dying," she told me. Her eyes were filled with tears. "I thought I would lose my little brother."_

_            "How long was I unconscious?"_

_            "About two weeks. The doctors had given up all hope. They thought you were dead, but I refused to have your body prepared. They can't tell a pulse from muscles twitching."_

_            I laughed at that remark. My eyes fell to something that was on her left hand, a simple gold ring. It glittered when she moved it._

_            "Who is the lucky man?"_

_            She stared at me. "You're very observant, Maxam. I'm engaged to Vincent Theodore Watson. You might remember him from that dinner party several months ago. I find him very charming; he is very influential in the town. We are to be married next year."_

_            "I thought you said no one liked you." Gabrielle was in her early twenties, and though many boys swooned over her, she called it "infatuation" and wouldn't give them a second glance._

_            Gabrielle smiled. "He's not like the others. This one is sensitive to my needs. His mind isn't only on sex like everyone else. No offense, little brother, but I think men will do anything to get inside a woman's pants."_

_            I stared at her. She had never spoken like this. "Gabrielle__!"_

_            "It's true."_

_            "I would never think__ of doing such a thing to any girl."_

_            She laughed at me. "Of course you __wouldn't! The only thing on your mind is smuggling paints into the house for your art."_

_            "Urania is dead," I told her. "She was murdered the night I fell ill."_

_            "I know. Her body was found in the fields. How did you hear about this?" Her voice was now completely serious. "You didn't—_

_            I gasped. "Of course I didn't! We went out that night. Someone attacked us. He was the reason why I fell ill."_

_            "Someone attacked you…"_

_            Gabrielle is the only one I trust in the entire family. I wouldn't think of hiding anything from her. I pushed aside my hair and showed her the marks at my throat._

_            "He bit me."_


	5. Part 1: Chapter 4

Authoress's Note: Okay! Here I am! I had some extra time today, so I decided to upload the next chapter of the story. Just so you know, this is now rated "R" because it is slightly above PG-13. They need to come up with something like PG-15; it would really help out with stories like this.

            When I am done quoting "Behind Blue Eyes," I will start quoting a poem about Pegasus; I wrote it during my psych class. After that, I have no idea what I will do. If you people know any songs that might define Pegasus, please let me know. : - )

            I do not own "Behind Blue Eyes" or "Yu-Gi-Oh!" I don't even an entire deck of store-bought cards. I make my own cards (oh, yeah… and bribe my sister for some of her store-bought ones like the Change of Heart…). In other words, this story is my interpretation of the character Pegasus. No humans were harmed in the making of this story.

"No one knows what it's like  
To feel these feelings  
Like I do –

And I blame you!"

- the Who

_            I have fallen asleep again. When I am not writing, I am watching the moonrise from the small window. The moon is becoming thinner, and as it does, the fear of death is rising in me. The reason they have not moved against me yet is unknown, but I think it has something to do with the phases of the moon._

_            If so, I have about a week to finish my entries. The new moon is closing fast. _

_            Earlier tonight, the cloaked one came to me. He sat in front of me and removed his hood. It was Midnight Blue. I should have known it would be him. He bit me again; he drank only a small sip before releasing me. I am grateful for that; else I would not have the strength to write these words. He pressed something into my hand. It was a candle. He lit it for me and told me to write more. _

_            I think he reads what I have written while I am asleep, yet he doesn't seem to care that some of what I write is against him. I have him to thank for the candle, though, for if he hadn't given it to me I would not be writing these words._

_            The sun is bothering my eyes again. I find myself sleeping in the day rather than at night, and as each day in the darkness passes, I find my eyes are becoming more sensitive to the light. This candlelight is sometimes a little too bright for me; it seems to illuminate the entire cell. _

_            His blood is slowly changing me, I think, though I doubt there is enough of it in my system to do more than sensitize my eyes and make me sleep during the day. I wonder what would happen if he drained me until I was almost dead. If he gave blood back to me, would enough of my human blood remain to fight the poison?_

_            Midnight Blue came to me often after I awoke from my two-week sleep. He would appear quickly and disappear in the same way. I remember him fiercely kissing me on the mouth; he sometimes cut his own tongue and let me taste the cold fire again. Other times he drank from me, though it was never enough to harm me. It was as if he was waiting for something._

_            "Pegasus," he whispered. It was a month after I had awoken. He caressed my throat, and when he touched the wounds, spasms of pain would shoot through my body. "It won't be long now."_

_            He drank from me again. I think he knew I was planning to flee, else he would not have said what he was about to say._

_            "I will find you no matter how far you run. We share a bond of blood." His lips traveled up my neck until they found my lips. The kiss did not come. I smelled my blood on his lips._

_            The kiss finally came, and the blood smeared across my lips. I had learned not to speak when he came; if I did, he would drink so much of my blood that the world would be hazy. I knew in those moments that it was almost enough blood to kill me._

_            "You are so beautiful," he told me. "I can see why your muse wanted you."_

_            He grabbed my hands and pulled me to my feet. My head lolled on my shoulders; I let my narrowed eyes slowly reach the burning blue orbs._

_            "Paint me."_

_            I awoke early the next morning, keeping the shades drawn. I had less than five hours of sleep, but I was not tired. I knew this day was too important for me to be weary._

_            It took me about an hour to gather all that I held dear. I was about to go out the window when I saw the painting I made last night. His eyes were staring at me; it was almost dry. In fact, by some strange luck, it was completely dry! I rolled it up and stuffed it in my backpack._

_            Gold was crammed into my pouch along with several beautiful gems. It was enough gold for me to last a lifetime, no matter how humble I had to be. Most of it was in the form of gold necklaces my grandmother had given me, heirlooms that I knew I needed to part with. I had found semi-precious stones in the mountains. The jewels were my mother's; she had died a week ago._

_            I told Gabrielle where I was going, and she gave me paper and told me to write to her. I promised her that I would write whenever I could._

_            "Why are you going?" she had asked._

_            "He comes to me every night. I need to get away from him. I feel like a caged bird from the power he holds over me. If I don't leave, he will kill me!"_

_            It's all the past, I told myself, not the present. _


	6. Part I: Chapter 5

Authoress's Note: After a lot of waiting (oh please, please let there be people reading this), this chapter is finally up. I have just finished Part II of this story and will commence writing Part III sometime this week. Part II is about as long as Part I. I have about 23,530 words or so on the story so far, but not very much of it is uploaded. I will try to upload as much as I possibly can as often as possible, but if I can't work on Part III, I won't update because I need to stay ahead of myself. This story will have four sections, each divided into numerous small chapters.

            Okay, I have something else to say. Thank you for the six reviews. 

            I have a comment about Part II to make. Part I is designed to be only slightly incoherent, but Part II is where he gets the Eye. We all know he is going to get it, so I don't think it is a big surprise that he gets it in Part II. Thanks to the complexity of the Eye, Part II is EXTREMELY incoherent and makes almost no sense in some parts. Part III will be the same way. Also, I like using a lot of descriptive paragraphs and I absolutely love incomplete sentences. Should I stop rambling here or get to the disclaimer? Oh! Wait! Please review! Thanks!

            Disclaimer: Don't own "Yu-Gi-Oh" or "Behind Blue Eyes." There.

"No one bites back as hard  
On their anger;  
None of my pain and woe  
Can show through."

- the Who

_            I had a dream about Cynthia. The dream was so real. She was in the cell, and the sunlight was streaming through the windows. I heard her whisper, but I couldn't make out what she was saying. She was in the clothes she had been buried in. _

_            "It's all in the past," she told me, "not the present."_

_            Those words mirrored my own thoughts when I left home._

_            Of course I know I must move on from her, but I love her dearly. When she died, I promised I would be a good father to our son. I would love him and care for him. _

_            She held her hands together and I saw my son. He was in another dungeon, and the strange man with the turban was with him. There was dust and soot on Cerberus's pale face; I could see evidence of tears. _

_            I am beginning to think the dream wasn't really a dream._

_            Perhaps it is time to reveal how I met the love of my life._

_            Lightning streaked through the sky and the downpour had soaked me in seconds. I was in a town near British territory; I don't remember the name of that place. My hair was plastered to my head; I had been mistaken for an old beggar more than once, though I was neither old nor a beggar. _

_            The inn was revealed in another flash of lightning. The premature night of the storm was forcing me to seek people, though I usually slept in trees. I knocked on the door and was greeted by the most beautiful young woman I had ever seen._

_            Her hair was in waves and it fell down her back like sunlight with a form. Her eyes reminded me of Urania; they had the same impossible depth to them. She was wearing a blue dress that matched her eyes. There was something kittenish about her._

_            I doubted she was much older than me._

_            "What do you want? You're not some patriot from South, are you?" I recognized the British accent immediately._

_            This is how I picked up the marvelous accent I can't ever seem to get rid of. It must have been punishment. Then again, desperate times call for desperate measures. I needed a place to stay before I caught a cold. I thought for a moment and tried to analyze the accent. I had done it several times before in front of Urania, and she said that my accent was almost perfect._

_            Almost._

_            "No, I'm not a patriot," I told her in that accent. "I'm looking for a place to stay the night."_

_            "And a warm meal, by the looks of it!" she said. "You're skin and bones!" I caught an Irish edge to her accent; I decided not to press._

_            She brought me inside. "We have a room for you. My name is Cynthia Brown. My father owns this in. If you need anything, just come to me and I'll give it to you. Now, are you going to stand there gaping or are you going to introduce yourself?"_

_            "My name is Maxamillion Pegasus. You can call me Maxam."_

_            "Oh, so you're the Pegasus boy. Merchants talk about you; your father is really big down South. What's a little rebel like yourself doing up in these parts?" she asked. Her voice was lowered. _

_            I looked at her. I had not known anyone knew about my family. "My family and I don't see eye-to-eye. I wasn't wanted there, so I decided to leave them."_

_            "I see."_

_            "Tell me, what do the merchants say?"_

_            "They say you're a rebellious little troublemaker who's quite the lady's man."_

_            I looked deep into her eyes. "You might say that." My eyes caught and held her for a very long time. Her face went lax and I was wondering if I should kiss her. _

_            She let out a long laugh then and pecked me on the cheek. "You're a very interesting boy, Maxam!"_

_            Her wet hair hit me in the face. _

_            "And you're a very beautiful girl, Cynthia."_

_            Cynthia stopped mid-stride and turned around. "A lot of men say that to me!"_

_            "Well, it's true."_

_            I remember nothing until she unlocked the door to the room I was to stay in. As if she had been indecisive before, she grabbed me by my lace collar and gave me a deep kiss. That was the most surprising event of the evening. Our lips parted and she threw the keys at me. _

_            "Have a nice stay, Maxam."_


	7. Part I: Chapter 6

Authoress's Note: Okay! Here is the update!

I am fully aware of the dubbed name of "Cecilia" in the series. I like "Cynthia" better; it just flows. I also began this fic before the flashback episode came out. Plus, this is AU, so I can play with things. If you want me to change it, please ask me. If enough people ask, I will consider it._ Thank you for all of the nice reviews! : - ) I am really surprised.__ I don't own "Behind Blue Eyes" or "Yu-Gi-Oh." _

"But my dreams,  
They aren't as empty  
As my conscience seems to be."

- the Who_  
  
_

_            We were in love. I gave up running from Midnight Blue; Cynthia was the sun and he was the night that was trying to close in, but the sun dispels darkness faster than lightning. I was given a discount staying at the inn if I helped with the work, which I did very well. Cynthia teased me._

_            "Put on your jacket or you'll catch cold!" she said when I took horses out to the stables. She tried to act like my mother, maybe to discourage me from liking her, but this happened less and less as the days went by._

_            Her lips met mine and we kissed passionately. _

_            "I want to be with you forever," I told her. "Forever and a day…"_

_            I handed her a gold ring, pressing it into her fingers. She looked into my eyes and kissed me again. I let my fingers weave through her hair._

_            "Have you gone to my father and asked for his permission?"_

_            I put my hands on her face. "Yes, I have. He was pleased, actually."_

_            Wedding plans were made immediately. I moved into the room with her after many promises to her father that I wouldn't touch her until our wedding day. He put us both to work in opposite parts of the inn, and at night we were too exhausted from the planning and the work that we fell asleep immediately. _

_            The bachelor's party was the most interesting thing I had ever been to. It was my first one, and it was also the first time I was to drink alcoholic beverages outside of Sunday worship services._

_            Of course, I didn't really believe in a God then, and my family had supported atheist beliefs with a burning fire. I loved Cynthia enough to be in her religion, for better or for worse. She helped me in many ways in the months we were together, such as perfecting my accent._

_            We were about fifteen grown men, some workers at the inn. Others I met in town on various occasions. Mr. Brown was there._

_            It was at that time that I realized that I absolutely hated beer. Because I didn't want to insult anyone, I drank the pint and tried to control my facial expression. Then I ordered a bottle of wine and drank the entire thing._

_            Of course, by that time I was drunk to the point of passing out. Sweet white wine coursed through my veins and made me giddy. I don't remember all of what happened that night, but I will try to write the events with as much clarity as I can._

_            First, my reason left me. I was aware of the poison running through my veins; it reminded me of Midnight Blue's blood. I got up on the table and did a dance. People were laughing and singing a familiar tune. I fell off the table and was helped up by others who were faring better than I was; we all laughed together._

_            The next thing I did was on the second bottle of wine. Now, mind you, these were not small bottles that restaurants give you. These were very large bottles. It took me an hour to drink it, more or less, and as I did I had the sensation of flying. Everyone by that time was at least as drunk if not more than I was, and the sane part of me was wondering why I had not passed out yet._

_            Alcohol numbs your senses and takes away the pain. It also removes a little thing called common sense from your mind. Therefore, you should understand the mortifying thing I did afterward. _

_            One of the friends I made and had kept for a miraculous three months was Lynn Bard. He was a really nice man about a year older than __I.__Lynn__, I discovered, was always frail in health. He had pale skin and sunken eyes, but his quick mind and smooth voice made up for his faulty body. Understand that he was very beautiful. When I say "very beautiful," I mean drop-dead gorgeous. He had expressive green eyes and a head of curly black hair that went past his shoulders. "Romanian on my mother's side," he told me once. _

_            The nickname for him was, "Lady Prince." _

_            He never drank anything alcoholic before; he wasn't a member of the church we went to. In other words, he was around where I was where intoxication is concerned._

_Lynn__ staggered up to me and kissed me on the mouth. The pleasure I felt was as much caused by my own feelings as the wine. I kissed back._

_            No one really noticed. They were having a belching contest._

_            "I love you, rich boy," he told me. His bottle went against my chest. He took another drink out of it. _

_            We kissed again; nothing changed in the area of attentiveness to what was going on with us. If anyone did see us, it was only to understand that we were so drunk that we had abandoned reason. After all, wine came from Dionysus, the Greek god most people held down there with Satan. _

_            I felt cold air on my back and realized that he was against the table. Someone had just come in through the door, and the affect he had on everyone was purely astonishing. _

_            The man was dressed in a long velvet cloak that hid his features from everyone in the room. A throbbing started in my temples, and I felt a strange pulling coming from what must have been my blood. _

_            He strode up to me and I looked into his eyes. It was obvious that he had not fed in a very long time, and I hoped he would not feed on my before my wedding day. His hand lifted my chin into the air and he looked at the scars on my neck._

_            You still belong to me, __he said in my mind. I can hear every thought.___

_            "No," I whispered. It was soft enough so none of them could hear, but the demon being before me could hear a fly land on a wall. "Not here; not now."_

_            "Later," he told me. _

_            He was gone as quickly has he had appeared, and the party was once again in high spirits. It was like no one knew he had come to me. _

_            Perhaps they didn't._

_            That was the last thing I was sober enough to remember._


	8. Part I: Chapter 7

Authoress's Note: Okay! Here's the long-awaited chapter! I was in a weird mood when I was writing this about two months ago, so it has a slightly humorous edge if you see it in just the right light. I actually thought this chapter was funny. : - )

            The normal disclaimers apply: I don't own "Yu-Gi-Oh" or "Behind Blue Eyes." Also, if someone would care to tell me what happened in the, oh, last three episodes on TV, I was at an evil band parade (marching in the rain; ugh…) that caused me to miss it. I can't believe it is already October! 

            I had writer's block for a while after writing the end of Part II, but now I'm up and running again thanks to finally mapping out Part III in my head. Part III is going to be very nasty for those of us who like Pegasus.

            I now present the long-awaited chapter.

"I have hours, only lonely,  
My love is vengeance  
That's never free…"

- the Who

_            The next morning, somewhere around ten, I felt well aside from an enormous headache. I rubbed my temples and closed the drapes. Sunlight only deserved to intensify it._

_            Yes, I had discovered what the world "hangover" meant._

_            To my surprise, there was a bottle of red liquid on the table beside my bed. I held it up to the light and saw something scribbled onto paper; the paper was glued to the bottle, and the letters were slightly smeared._

_            "Drink this if you want to be spared tremendous pain and agony," I read aloud. _

_            I was willing to try anything to make the headache go away. I vowed to myself that I would never, ever get drunk again – as long as I was still sane. _

_            The bottle opened easily, and I smelled something inside it that reminded me of Midnight Blue's appearance the previous night. It tasted a lot like the rich ambrosia of his blood, but it was more subdued._

_            My hypothesis is that blood loses its energy gradually when it is away from a body. I know it sounds strange, but it is something I just know._

_            A phantom pain at my neck distracted me from the headache, and even when the pain at my neck faded, I felt nothing. It was blissful, a sort of peace, and I felt grateful to Midnight Blue even though I knew he killed Urania and I thought he might be planning to kill my beloved Cynthia. _

_            "Don't touch her," I begged the darkness of my room. "Let her live, if only for a while. It would please me."_

_            Did I detect a phantom tendril in my mind, a slight pressure at my temples? I thought I felt a presence in the darkened room; Cynthia was not here, as she was on the opposite side of the inn to prevent bad luck. I was not to see her before we were wed._

_            Of course, if you are from the civilized world you already know all of the customs that exist around weddings._

_            I was struck by the beauty of the place we were to be wed in. There were ribbons hanging everywhere, and beautiful organ music was playing. I recognized __Lynn__ in the audience, my friend and confidant, and he gave me a small smile. _

_            She floated through the back doors, dressed in white splendor, the veil over her head. I had not seen her in a day, and the sight of her made me go weak at the knees. I felt like I would faint; the light from the windows was suddenly too bright and her beauty too angelic. I locked eyes with __Lynn__ for support, and it was as if he understood what I was going through._

_            I remember naught of what was said during the ceremony; her lips were on mine and it was the best feeling in the world. I can still feel the phantom kiss now, after all these years we have been apart. Yes, I am haunted by many ghosts, many shadows. Everywhere there is death, and I can't help but wonder if I am the cause of it. It goes where I go. _

_            Perhaps Midnight Blue is doing the world a great service._

_            No – I can't afford to think like that now, not after all that has happened. _

_            We slept together that night, and we had decided not to go anywhere. I was frightened, yes, but I knew that I wanted to be with her where I felt some comfort. The last thing I wanted to do was desert the friends I had._

_            And, in our wedding-night passion, a child was conceived. _

_            I cannot say when she discovered this, but I think we both knew deep in our hearts that something had come into being inside her. It seems fitting that my sped-up life would see a child before we had several years of blissful loneliness. Each day I spent with her was a week, though we did not age in the accelerated way, or at least I thought that way until she was sick. But never mind that now._

_            I was writing about our child, the child I have unwillingly brought such horrid evil upon. No doubt is in my mind; he is somewhere nearby, and I can sometimes hear frightened yelps in my sleep. He cries out._

_            When she told me she was pregnant, we celebrated. I immediately called __Lynn__ and we celebrated. Her belly swelled._

_            Now, the joy I felt could not sway the absolute horror I felt at the thought of a child being born. I remembered something vaguely, and it terrified me more than anything in the world. There was a faint memory in my mind of when we found a cat in the woods, and I remembered the aura I had felt when I touched her. It was a crawling feeling over my thin, slick as oil. It was the same one I felt around Cynthia now, and it scared me more than I would have liked._

_            With relief and fear, I prayed for the day to come when she would bring the child into the world. I sometimes saw Midnight Blue outside the window, a dreadful sneer on his face; sometimes he would whisper words inside my mind and I cried out._

_            As I look back on the nine strenuous months, I think it went faster than I would have liked it to go. By day I worked, and by night I would wait and sometimes fall into a troubled sleep; other times I would find it impossible and go down the road after dark and seek the company of __Lynn__._

_            On one particularly clear night, the baby came. It had recently rained, and the cool beauty of it thrilled me. Not a storm, as I had been born into, but unexplainable beauty that touched my soul and brought me a strange comfort. _

_            Her screams and cries were the first things I heard as I returned home with __Lynn__; we had been at the local tavern, but we had not had enough to become drunk. __Lynn__ was to be leaving for __France__ in a week; the ship to __England__ would not arrive for a few more days. It would take several more for it to be prepared for another voyage._

_            "I'll take a ferry across the channel from there," he told me as he drank the rose wine. "I've had enough of the colonies; besides, my Father's country will end up ruling the world!"_

_            As we became close friends, I noticed that he can always put in a positive thing about his family. From what he has told me, I have gathered that his grandfather was Romanian. He ran to __England__ for some reason, as I could never get the proud __Lynn__ to tell me exactly why. He married a British woman named Catherine. Their daughter, Jen, met a depressed Frenchman and they had __Lynn__._

_            I think he ran away from home and caught a ship to the __Americas__._

_            I paced outside of our room, for the midwife would not let anyone in. __Lynn__ was trying to force me to drink laudanum; I was actually afraid of the drug. The idea of something else controlling you, preventing you from waking… _

_            Another scream came from the room._

_            "I don't want any laudanum!" I screamed. _

_            "Brandy?"_

_            "No."_

_            "Wine?"_

_            The thought was very tempting… "No."_

_            "A chocolate drink?"_

_            Chocolate was even more tempting than wine. "No."_

_            "Come on, Maxam."_

_            "No."_

_            "Just a small glass of chocolate!"_

_            "No."_

_            "Then what do you want?"_

_            "I want to pace back and forth until the child comes."_

_            "Maxam, it's almost __midnight__."_

_            "I don't care."_

_            "You're going to pace back and forth all night?"_

_            "Yes."_

_            "Are you sure?"_

_            "Yes."_

_            "Do you want something to keep you awake?"_

_            "No. I can do that myself."_

_            He sat down on the floor, resting his head against the wall. His eyes were closed. I wondered why he wasn't going home, but then again, we were really close._

_            Though it breaks my heart to write it, I wanted to kiss his pouting crimson lips. At first I thought it was the drinks we had shared at the tavern, but I didn't feel the influence of the alcohol. I gripped the sides of my head and shut my eyes. My back hit the wall and I felt myself sliding down. My head hurt a lot. _

_            I felt his hand against my forehead. I didn't trust myself enough to move or open my eyes; I wondered if something was wrong with me._

_            "Maxam?"_

_            "Do you remember the bachelor's party?" I slowly opened my eyes and looked into his. "Were you too drunk to remember it?"_

_            His passionate green eyes bored into me. I felt like I would explode if I couldn't unleash my feelings. His voice broke through the silence. "I remember, Maxam."_

_            "You're the closest I have… besides Cynthia…" and Midnight Blue, __I wanted to add, but I didn't want __Lynn__ to know._

_            "You're all I have…"_

_            I feel very guilty; I cannot say the kiss was the result of anything but my emotions. It shatters me that what emotions I hold can go so far away from my teachings; I have never thought about it until now. _

_            I awoke to the sound of a door closing. I was leaning against the wall; I felt like my blood had been drained, and it probably had. When I opened my eyes, I saw __Lynn__ exit the room with a burlap bag. There was blood on it; it must have been the sheets. We met eyes, but I looked down, still ashamed of myself._

_            Brown eyes from my dream, I remembered, the color of dark chocolate. And white hair that hung in clumps. One half dark, one half light; a boy._

_            The pain of being bitten while the dream played before my eyes. The white-haired angel's eyes flashed __Midnight__'s sky blue; I heard his toxic voice in my mind._

_            Soon…___

_            We kissed on the cheek as I prepared to enter the room and face my son._

_            Cynthia was lying against the pillows, her face ashen. There was a small bundle in her arms. I was not thinking about the baby as I gazed on her; she looked very sick and exhausted; there was pain inside her eyes. I thought I smelled decay in the room._

_            "Your son," she said weakly._

_            The midwife was putting instruments in her bag._

_            I took the bundle in my hands and carefully lifted it. Reddish-amber eyes, tufts of black hair on his head; he didn't resemble Cynthia at all. I could see his features modeled after mine and… __Midnight__'s. No hint of Cynthia was in the child. He looked up at me and wiggled a little. _

_            A wild intelligence shone in his eyes. I shuddered._

_Midnight__ laughing in my head…_

_            Cerberus, the three-headed guard dog…_

_            "Cerberus Maximum Pegasus."_


	9. Part I: Chapter 8

Authoress's Note: Here is the next chapter of the story. There is only one more after this in Part I, and then I will have a brief time of not updating until I have progressed as far as I need on Part III. Thank you for all of the good reviews so far.

            I don't own "Yu-Gi-Oh" or "Behind Blue Eyes." 

"When my fist clenches, crack it open  
Before I use it and lose my cool.  
When I smile, tell me some bad news  
Before I laugh and act like a fool."

- the Who

_            Cynthia was very sick. I knew this a week after the birth of our child; it was not just fatigue. There was a bluish tinge to her lips and her eyes were always closed._

_            It is very hard on the mind to watch someone waste away like a lit candle._

_            I finally convinced her that she needed to see a doctor about a month after she became sick; Cynthia didn't believe in modern medicine._

_            Perhaps she would be still with me if she had._

_            We hired an African woman to nurse our child because the doctor said it would help prevent our child from wasting away. He told me in a quiet voice that she had used up all of her strength during the birth of our child, and the loss of energy made her very ill. He said she would recover._

_            "The doctor says you will be well again." I stroked her hair; it had lost its luster, but it was still as soft as a feather bed._

_            She took my hand in hers. "I never thought it would come this soon." She tried to laugh, but it turned into a hacking cough. "I'm only seventeen; I have the child to care for, and I don't want to break your heart."_

_            "You will be well again, Cynthia. Don't talk like that."_

_            "God ordains when it is time to die. Don't look at me like that, Pegasus." I winced at the use of my last name. "I know you are a skeptic." Her voice was hoarse; I refilled the glass. She drank it. "I know I am dying. No one can turn the tide."_

_            I looked down at her; I was horrified. "Don't die, Cynthia! I need you! Your son needs you! What about your father?"_

_            Cynthia laughed again; the sound of it sickened me and the room seemed to darken. I could smell something putrid in the air, her decay perhaps. _

_            "Don't you see?" she asked me. I thought I saw something gold in the mirror where my left eye should have been. I blinked and the image was gone._

_            "See what, dear?"_

_            "The child. It is not my child. I bore him, I gave birth to him… but it isn't my child. It is your child more than anyone else's. Who is the blue-eyed demon I see standing over the bed at night? He calls out to you. He is in the room right now watching us."_

_            I thought she had gone mad._

_            Now that I think about what happened, there was an odd shadow in the corner of the room. A flash of blue, perhaps, then back the way it had been._

_            "Tell me about him."_

_            "He has blue eyes," she began. "When I first saw him, he was in the window. His hair was aglow with the light of the full moon; it was a light blue. Recently, though, his hair is darker. Black, I think, or dark blue. He whispers your name. He kissed my belly when I was pregnant and ran his fingernails over my chest. I was frightened; you wouldn't wake up no matter how hard I tried to rouse you."_

_            I was stunned._

_            After she spoke this, I thought I was beginning to see something in the shadows. I thought her madness was making my imagination play tricks on me, but at the same time I knew no madwoman could extract Midnight Blue from my mind and paint him._

_            "Please get well," I said. I left the room._

_            But she didn't get well._

_            I was aware of a strange presence in my mind sometimes; it sifted through my thoughts and whispered in my mind. When I awoke one morning, I felt soreness at my neck and my hand felt around until there was half-dried blood. _

_Lynn__ disappeared without even a goodbye; I wondered if I would ever find him again in the expanse of my lifetime. The image of the bloodied bag burned itself in my mind, and the more I thought about it the more there was something wrong with that image. In my dreams, the bag melted away to reveal a girl with white hair and my eyes._

_            A fantasy, of course; I have always wanted a daughter._

_            Her death came shortly before her eighteenth birthday; she had been asleep for a very long time and awoke only to eat and say "I love you" to me. That evening, I sensed something was different about her. I thought I could see something around her, and the putrid odor of decay assaulted me when I walked into the room. I breathed with my mouth so I would not have to smell it._

_            There was sweat on her face that glittered in the setting sun. Something about her seemed broken and without hope. She opened her eyes, which had taken on a ghoulish transparency. She was going blind, of course. Now she could only see shapes._

_            "Cynthia," I whispered. My mouth brushed against her wet forehead. "Beloved."_

_            "I tried." Her voice was very weak, barely even audible. "I tried."_

_            "No!" I told her. I shook her furiously. "I will not let you leave me! So many years, Cynthia, we have so many years!"_

_            She closed her eyes. I thought she had fallen asleep until her feeble voice broke through the silence of the shadow of death. "I saw something about you when I met you. I see it in you now. There comes a crossroad in your life; there were three directions, but only two remain open. I have sinned against you, and if my soul goes to Hell I do not regret it. I have kept secrets."_

_            I thought she was done, but her voice cut off what I was about to say._

_            "I remember the night they were born. He came to me then and told me you were his, not mine, that you had asked for me. I felt his presence rouse the children, and they wanted to come out. And there was something else; I felt a fork in my life. Both roads led to death, and only one had hope. I feel a great evil coming. There was another who felt this evil, someone else who loved you. He helped me. I am so sorry!"_

_            Her words… I don't understand them at all now that I think about it. At that time, I was not trying to comprehend what she was saying. My mind repeated, she's dying, she's really dying. She won't come back. __It was a mantra._

_            "Promise me you will be a good father to our son. Promise you won't let him hurt Cerberus."_

_            "I promise."_

_             "I need to leave you now. Don't think about me if it pains you."_

_            Tears were welling in my eyes. "Goodbye, Cynthia. I love you."_

_            She opened her eyes again. "I know."_

_            I held her hand for a very long time, unaware of anything in the room. "Cynthia, I'm sorry."_

_            There was no answer. Her eyes were open, vacant, and I let out a long scream. I heard footsteps rushing up the stairs. Her hand was limp and her eyes would not shut! My cries took on a high-pitched tone._

_            "Cynthia!" I shook her arm. "Cynthia!"_

_            I stared at her body, the small ravaged form. Calm swept over me, and I felt her smooth name grace my lips one more time. A final tear fell onto her face._

_            Dead are those who love me that love me as a lover. My personal tongue twister; rhythmic, flowing, and the truest thing I have ever said about myself._

_            Midnight Blue grasped me and pulled me to my feet. I recoiled and turned on him; a moment of stunned hesitation left him enough time to grasp my wrist. His hair was not blue now, but had been dyed a blackish color that seemed to reflect blue and dark violet. And it was not sunset now, I noticed, but dark._

_            How long had I been grasping her dead hand?_

_            The thought chilled me._

_            Another thought seized me. __Midnight__ was the cause of this. The monster I saw before me had wrought destruction to those I loved. It was not my fault, of course, how could I say that it was my fault? But it was; mine for allowing them to get close enough to me to be hurt._

_            But there was no room for thought in that room. There were people knocking on the door and demanding what was wrong. _

_            "You fiend," I whispered. I threw myself at him and a hiss escaped his lips. Fury as I had never before witnessed coursed through him like blood. _

_            When he spoke, his voice was dangerously cool. "Pegasus," he said. _

_            It was then that I noticed the bundle in his hands. My child! A small gurgle came and let me know Cerberus was still alive. __Midnight__ was cradling it in his other arm._

_            He pressed me to him and I felt a surge between us. I looked into his eyes and saw his lust for me; it chilled me. His lips rested on my neck and then his fangs were in me. I grasped him closer as everything faded away._


	10. Part I: Chapter 9

Authoress's Notes: Okay, here is the last chapter in Part One. Thank you for all the good reviews and suggestions, and in Part Three, I will try to incorporate them. Please continue to give me feedback and suggestions, though. 

            I do not own "Yu-Gi-Oh" or "Behind Blue Eyes."

"If I swallow anything evil,  
Put your finger down my throat.  
If I shiver, please give me a blanket.  
Keep me warm; let me wear your coat"

- the Who

_            I think this will be my last entry. They tortured me again tonight until I begged for forgiveness, but I know not from what._

_            All that has happened to me the past weeks I deserve. First Muriel, then the grandfather I have never met. Mother, Urania… Cynthia…_

_            Somewhere along the line, I lost consciousness. I awoke in the cell with a lit candle. __Midnight__ was holding my journal; it was closed. His fingers caressed my face, which was the only thing besides my hands that had not been marred._

_            He gathered my long hair in his fingers and pressed it to his mouth._

_            "If you have something to write, I suggest you do it before you die."_

_            I looked into his eyes and I saw what I had seen so long ago when I awoke from the drink he had taken. He had been on the edge of the bed and my eyes and neck hurt badly; I could barely move. I felt that he loved me in those moments, and his lips hovered above mine for the longest time._

_            "There is food for you downstairs. Your son has been given food. I will not harm him as long as you remain with me."_

_            Then I was in the present again and gazing into his eyes. "I die tomorrow night."_

_            "You will have to make a choice."_

_            "I deserve to die."_

_            He shook his head at me. "No, you don't. You suffer for nothing."_

_            I felt him kiss me and I felt no remorse in that kiss, nothing that reminded me of Cynthia or anyone else I knew. It was __Midnight__, and the world was nothing when faced with him. And I knew I belonged to him._

_            Now that I think about it, I am frightened._

_            He owns me._

_            But he left the candle lit and told me to write; I do, else I would not be penning these words. _

_            Now I will speak of Cerberus for a moment. He is the son of __Midnight__ and me, but Cynthia bore him. His first word was at the age of nine months; I don't know how he could have learned it, for __Midnight__ and I never uttered the word in his presence. "Hell."_

_            Perhaps while I slept __Midnight__ read to him. Maybe that explains it._

_            But the worst part of my life is that I failed to protect my son. It was after an argument with __Midnight__; we fought for a long time over nothing. I took my son away from that place. I was found and knocked unconscious; that is how I was brought here. And so it really is my fault that such evil has come upon me. _

_            Whatever happens, may the divine wreak havoc on those who have harmed my family._

_Maxamillion James Pegasus_

_1805                _

"No one knows what it's like  
To be the bad man,  
To be the sad man  
Behind blue eyes…"

- the Who


	11. Part II: Chapter 1

Authoress's Note: OKAY! We're back after a very long wait! Well, I had the play to do, which is why this didn't get updated. Our school did _The Sounds of Music. I was the Reverend Mother. On top of that, I had to dress people during quick costume changes, so I have had no time to do anything but homework, play, and flute lately. Now I have so much time after school that I hardly know what I can do with it… maybe get a little farther on the third part…_

            Well, this is the debut of Part II, and thank you to everyone who has been reading this. Oh, and if you have not already guessed, Pegasus is bi. There will be a lot more homosexual relationships in this part, but they are also kind of key to the plot. ; - ) I also probably don't need to say that Pegasus still loves Cynthia, and that will be a key thing that prevents him from doing things in this part.

            Disclaimer: I do not own "Yu-Gi-Oh," but I do own this poem I will be using fragments of during this part of the story.

            Now sit back, enjoy, and become one with the Force…

_"A glance – then he is gone,_

_A phantom of the ancient past."___

– From "The White Shadow," written by me.

            The underground labyrinth was as silent as the grave, and I blundered blindly through it with noting to guide me but my weak feet. Fatigued, beaten and famished; they had done all they could to prevent my escape.

            A man's spirit can be broken very easily.

            Broken, maybe, but not without hope. It was hope I saw in the predawn light as I signed my name to the book that had been my only real companion. Words poured from my broken soul like blood from a fatal wound.

            What had I done to deserve this? I thought about it the rest of the day, and the more I thought about it the more I knew what peace could be. Death: peaceful oblivion. I am afraid of peace, just as I am afraid of living one more day in this place. Life is what I knew I deserved in those moments or the memories I kept would fade away forever; no paper can hold sway for very long. 

            I threw the book out the window, and I heard it fall into the sand. Someday, someone might pick it up and read those words, unaware of the illusionary barrier that prevented them from seeing inside the dark prison where I spent my final days and nights.

            My move was made somewhere around midday, of course, when I had gathered all of my will into making my dead limbs move. Midnight's blood had helped me a lot. I knew he could find me no matter what sanctuary I found, such is the bond of blood, but I did not fear that. Somewhere in my cold, disconnected heart I felt something for him. The heart that had lost love after love, life after life, cold and dead at one time and quickened once more by that gentile caress in the darkness, cold sculpture against warm flesh. Cold words whispering in the darkness: "He is the one you have been searching for."

            How could I have dared to think it was a dream?

            After a while of feeling around, I felt my fingers close on a cold ladder. I reasoned it out in my mind. I was on an upper level, and the way out had to be somewhere lower. Of course they would put the dying, screaming prisoners as far away from themselves as humanly possible! Yet I heard no screams, though there was shifting in the other cells. When I passed, I sometimes saw dull, soulless eyes.

            I still see them whenever I close my eyes. 

            My fingers felt around the ladder until I found how I could get onto it. Total darkness, this place; how could Midnight and "Master" see in this? Shifting in the cells, a small whisper calling out to me, "White-haired angel, deliver us."

            No.

            Some time later I realized I was completely lost with no hope of finding my way back. I wondered if I could light one of the torches that I felt the walls for; they had been extinguished so none of the prisoners would be allowed to escape. And that was a big problem for me. The sunset would be coming fast, and when they realized I was not there, I would have a really big problem.

            Note to self: next time I am captured, I will bring a flashlight. Nice, modern, something I couldn't have had back in 1805. But with great improvements come great sacrifices: no more tights. Lace shirts seem to be making a comeback, though. I like to think that I started the fashion trend. We all need egos sometimes, me probably more than others. But it is more common for me to have a nightmare than an ego, all because of those vacant eyes; they say that facing your fear is the best medicine.

            On the other hand, when they discovered I was gone, they might have decided I was salvageable, or they could make me like the others in the cells. That thought almost made me retch. Instead of the bile, I felt something against my cheek.

            My hand reached up with surprise and smeared across my cheek. "Tears," I said softly. They stung my eyes. I felt myself slide down the wall and onto the floor. I buried my face in my hands. How could I be in a place like this?

            I read the note many times after I received it from her father; it was sealed with her fingerprint and I recognized her tiny handwriting.

            _"Dearest love,_

_I cannot help but think. I am writing this and I do not regret that I have kept it from you. I had a dream, my love, and it told me what I should do. An angel came for me and kissed me on the forehead. You must think me mad; I am perfectly sane. I did see an angel._

_Your daughter's name is Jasmine Pegasus. She looks a lot like you with the white hair, but she has my father's eyes; brown, almost black. I sent __Lynn__ away; he has her with him. Do not try to find them. I am trying to protect her from a corrupted world. They will be safe in __France__. _

_Please give me one last thing. I know I have deceived you, but I need you to do something for me. Go to __Egypt__. I have wanted to see the sands ever since I heard about the people we found there. There are ruins from the ancient times everywhere. Promise me you will go._

_                                                                                    Your dearest love, _

_                                                                                                Cynthia"_

            How many times had I read that letter? I had committed it to memory; I could see her bent over the stationary at her desk before she was too ill to leave her bed. The wax from the red candle must have looked like blood.

            I opened my eyes and was surprised to see a soft illumination surrounding me. It was a small lantern, and I looked around but saw no one there. A soft hand at my cheek, though, and his soft words telling me to come with him; I was still in tears. He held me in his arms like a small child and I told him things.

            "I know," he told me. "Life is terrible for you. You feel it like no other creature because you have known pain. You don't want it to go on."

            "No."

            The dark curls fell into his face. I wanted to brush them away.

            I felt his emotion then, how he desired me almost as much as I desired him. There was a small shimmer around him; life force. Sometimes colors if the emotion is strong enough, other times only a faint ripple. Around vampires it is a darkening in the immediate area, and around the changing it is a faint flicker that darkens with each passing second.

            Something greater was at stake. I could tell that just by looking into his eyes. 

            Now.

            I would have to choose now.

            Two paths open before me, like she said. One led to certain death, and another was the one that I wanted. 

            I found his lips in the dark, somber light. He stiffened and I felt his arms reach upwards in astonishment before they closed around me. I was lifted to my feet and he broke the kiss, but he still held me very close. 

            His lips went to his wrist, and I smelled the dark elixir flowing in the dark expanse of the room. He pressed it to my lips. "Drink from me, Pegasus."

            I took swallow after swallow, and after a while I felt giddy. He wrenched his wrist away from me and he held me close to him. There was blood staining my mouth, and he licked off what I could not reach with my tongue. 

            "We will go to Shadi now."

            Shadi. So that was his name! I imagined painting him sometimes; he looked like a truly fascinating subject. Such harsh contradiction in one body! So young and yet it was so obvious that he was very old!


	12. Part II: Chapter 2

Authoress's Notes: Hello everyone! Here is the next chapter from the terribly incoherent story of Pegasus. There are wonderful things awaiting everyone in this. Please note that there will be places in which nothing makes sense at all. When I wrote this chapter, I was under the influence of sugar. How does sugar affect me? Read the thing about Pegasus's necessary bodily function crisis… *wink* So, um… time for disclaimer before I give everything away… ahem! I do not own "Yu-Gi-Oh!" If I did, the series would have been rated R for really bad violence… no, seriously. Duel Monsters getting slashed apart limb from limb on the hologram arena, holographic body parts flying everywhere, large quantities of holographic blood… not that little shatter-image thing… ANYWAY, here's the story. 

_"Look away lest you be drawn –_

_Keep away from one from the dark eon._

_All it takes is one little mistake_

_And all you love becomes death at daybreak."_

- from "The White Shadow"

            I remember the wine; they had me take a sip of it. I think there was something in it, for I was powerless; I couldn't do anything to stop them. They cut my hair. I remember the pain as the scissors went through my hair; I kept it at my waist because I needed it to be long. Now it was slightly below my shoulders in the front. In the back, it was slightly longer.

            There was no need for the razor, as I never grew facial hair like the majority of men when they are old enough. That isn't exactly a good thing; I am often mistaken for someone younger than I really am.

            Several hours later, after they had made my body the way they wanted it, I realized I had to go to the bathroom. This wouldn't have been a problem if I hadn't consumed all of that alcohol. I tried crossing my legs so they wouldn't snicker, but the more I tried to subdue it the more I had to go. 

            "Is there a problem?"

            "I have to go to the bathroom."

            "Oh."

            Several minutes later, I made it to a room where several guards locked the door from the outside. There was no other way out, and I quickly did my business. This was my first experience with a flushing toilet. It wasn't like the modern toilets; it was a little more complex in operation. There was a seat and a small tray at the bottom. No water, of course; this was the desert for crying out loud! There were several chains dangling from the ceiling and all of them did something to the toilet. There were symbols that probably told you what to do, but I didn't know the language. That was a problem.

            I then decided to pull them from right to left and see what happened.

            The first chain snapped something that closed off the basin. The second made a really sick gurgling noise from inside. The third made something snap, which I believe sent the waste to God-knows-where. I don't mean to be disgusting; try to imagine being born into a world where you do your business in a large bucket that has to be emptied out or it will smell horrible. You have never seen anything like a toilet.

            It's like sticking a two-dimensional person in a three-dimensional room. 

            Anyway, on my way out I saw a mirror. I almost didn't recognize myself with shorter hair. My eyebrows had been groomed, and they were now sharp lines. My eyes were lined with kohl in the Ancient Egyptian fashion. I stared into it frantically as I tried to find something that reminded me of myself in there other than the white hair and the amber-gold eyes, but I might have been looking at a totally different person.

            My skin was pale from being enclosed in darkness for a long time, and I was too thin. I could feel my ribs when I touched the ruffled shirt. 

            No, this wasn't Maxamillion James Pegasus. This was someone who looked like him enough to imitate him, nothing more. And there were voices on the other side and someone was unlocking the door, but he was still looking in the mirror with a horrified expression.

            I kept this sense of detachment for a long time. I was like a ghost seeing my body through someone else's eyes. _This can't be me. I won't let it be me. He is not me. He is someone else._

_            I was drawn back into myself when Midnight stroked my short hair. It surprised me that it had come to this so soon, that I didn't have much longer. Death or death; only one would lead to rebirth in some new form in the same bodily cage. No time to dwell on those issues, though; they were carrying me to a horizontal slab and I was being latched to it._

            It reminded me of the tortures.

            And why else would they dress me so elegantly? I would be dead before the night was over.

            They brought me out to the middle of the floor where there was a large circle and shoved me down so hard that when my right arm came down, pain reverberated through my body. The pain wouldn't have been unbearable alone, but there was more. Almost no light hit the insides of the circle, and I was shoved into the darkness in which I could see only shapes and forms. I saw a form moving towards me, and it was the only thing in the room that remained clear…

            "Midnight, drain him."

            He hesitated like he didn't really want to do that, but then he looked at me like he knew this would happen. I realized I felt his emotions and his pain, but there was also a strange calm coming from him. Whatever it was, it dispelled my fear. His eyes were twin balls of fire in the darkness; his form was that of a radiant angel. I rose to my feet; Midnight was holding me in a loving grip.

            His fingers worked up and down my arm for a moment, and I felt myself become aroused. I reached my arm around and pressed his head to my neck area, and I liken that clumsy mortal move to a fly trying to move a door.

            _I won't let you die, Pegasus. _

_            Mild surprise as I heard his voice speak in my mind… needing… wanting… what to say?' __I trust you. Yes, that was what I had discovered when I thought of what happened during my life. When I left him, he was angry and he took me here, but he hadn't killed me. He had threatened me, but he had never killed me. Love is the ultimate trust. When you love someone, you will put your bleeding heart in their hands and trust them not to throw it into the fire. When you love someone, you can move the world. _

I loved Cynthia… 

            _He will have me drain you until you will die of blood loss; my blood will keep you alive for several hours. _

_            I felt his lips against my neck. I felt myself tense; I closed my eyes and waited for his fangs to sink into my skin. I dreaded that moment and yearned for it, for whenever he drank from me I felt peace and the brush with death brought me closer to him. __Scars all over my body where no one would notice from his deadly bite… I thought about this for a moment._

            _Yes, deadly, but also lovely… His fangs sank into my skin and I arched my back. It was something terrible I felt in those moments; his dark passion made the link between us swell and I heard a soft moan escape from my lips. I couldn't move; if I had not been tied, I still wouldn't be able to move. I wanted to move closer to him and I also wanted to run away._

            Swirls of color coalesced into an image of my son sitting while Shadi whispered things to him. Another image: Midnight and Shadi arguing.

            _"Don't kill him, Shadi."_

_            "I knew from the moment I saw him what he was. Do you think I am about to let someone like that here when he would kill us all if he had the chance? The white-haired one is dangerous. His son might be salvageable, but for him, nothing."_

_Midnight__ scowled. "You fool. I can see who he is. He is the one you have been searching for, the one who must bear the weight of the Sennan Eye."_

            It faded away. I didn't know why he had shown it to me, but it was getting harder to think and avoid falling into darkness. His mind was hovering just inside me; he knew me. That was how he had found me earlier; he knew me. No matter what happened, he would always be with me. 

            And I was not going to die.

            My son reached out for me, though I knew the illusion wasn't real. Against my dimming senses I heard him cry out. 

            His outstretched hand led me into the darkness. The form paled and melded with the dark until it was only an outline. Finally, even that was gone.

Authoress's Note: In case you didn't get it, they were making Pegasus up all nice because that's how they treat people they are going to kill. 


	13. Part II: Chapter 3

Authoress's Note: YAY! Here's the next chapter! I want to thank everyone for the good reviews. I'm sorry for not updating regularly, and I don't really have any excuses at the moment… I have all of Part II done, half of Part III… and an idea for the epilogue. I don't think I've said this before: this is a companion to my other story, _The Light in the Dark. That was my first fanfiction story and it wasn't really that good (I messed up a transitional between several chapters; it wasn't very Pegasus-centered, more Bakura in that one.) Well, anyway… I don't own "Yu-Gi-Oh!" However, I do own the excerpt from the poem I am using. _

_"(He holds the darkness in his soul,_

_Never empty, never whole._

_Don't you see it in his eyes?  
Don't you hear it in his cries?)_

_Forever is gone, forever is long,_

_And a heartbeat fades in a brassy gong_

_Only to find itself here – now –_

_Only to be gone like a shadow_

_That was never there."_

- from "The White Shadow"

            It was dark when I awoke.

            I felt like someone that was lost in the desert. My throat felt like it was on fire. It was like all my bodily fluids had been taken from me by the scorching sun. I needed something to drink.

            The only problem was that I could barely move.

            Someone pressed a cup to my lips. I felt Midnight's presence; he tipped the cup of water until it spilled into my mouth. It made me feel only slightly better. I was very weak still from the draining, and the puncture wounds were very sore. 

            "You will die soon if you don't have a blood transfusion," he told me. "There is no one here who has the technology to give you one. I am giving you a choice. My blood in your system will only work for so long; there isn't enough of it in there to prevent you from dying."

            I didn't have the strength to speak.

            "I promised I wouldn't let you die; I won't lose you."

            I opened my eyes just enough to see his face. Beyond him was darkness, but there was someone calling out to me with an angelic tone in her voice – Cynthia. She was holding onto me and I wanted to go to her.

            The pain in that movement was almost unbearable.

            "She wouldn't want you do die so needlessly." He tried to keep his voice even, but I heard his voice crack. Something was embedded in it – pain – so subtle that I wasn't even sure I was really hearing in.

            Yes, I was very sure he was saying something else and there was no way it was about Cynthia, but I couldn't waste my time. My vision was fading in and out and the cold was trying to engulf me in a dark fog. I couldn't breathe, and I panicked and tried to take in enough oxygen; it sounded like I was choking.

            I was going numb when he finally decided that asking me was out of the question. I would never have let him do it; I tried to resist as much as I could, but when you're dying, it's not that easy to fight off someone who's about ten times stronger than you are in normal conditions. 

            My eyes were closed, but I could see everything, but I wasn't conscious. It was a very passive seeing, like everything is a dream, and I was only numbly aware of my throat making swallowing motions. I was so numb that I didn't even feel the wetness at my lips. 

            And I was not even in the room anymore, but we were back in our large flat in Paris during one of the bitter winters that we used to get back then; now that period is referred to as a "little ice age," but back then it was life.

            Cerberus was playing the violin and Midnight whapped his fingers with a stick every time he messed up the notes. I could see the tears in my son's eyes; he was only four, after all. He had learned how to hold emotion at a distance. With Midnight, you could never tell when you were going to be struck or when you would be let go. I spared Cerberus the bad beatings by taking them upon myself. 

            He choked back another sob and his fingers missed a note. I closed my eyes and heard a small thwack followed by more sounds.

            _"__Midnight__!" I screamed._

            He sneered. _"I have spared the young one long enough. He's spoiled; he takes after you. He is my son as much as he is yours; I don't see why I should spare him anything. You act like his mother."_

_            "Have you always been heartless or is this just a recent development?"_

            My son's eyes jerked back and forth between us. The skin on his face was already starting to bruise as a side affect from his malnourishment; Midnight hardly ever gave us money for food, and I needed it less than I needed light. 

            He snickered and raised his hand to hit me; I closed my eyes, expecting to be hit hard enough to make me fly into the wall. Instead, I felt his fingers caressing my face. My eyes snapped open and he gave me a smile.

            _"Pegasus," he whispered. His lips brushed against mine._

            I cringed and he scowled at me; I knew what he meant to do even as he was moving toward my son. His eyes fell on Cerberus's neck with cold hunger. I believe I screamed; Cerberus tried to run.

            The sound of his scream when the fangs plunged in was almost unbearable. Those minutes were an eternity as I waited for him to stop; would my son live or die? A small gasp filtered through the air as Midnight relinquished his hold; my son was alive. I thanked the God I had recently begun to believe in.

            But it didn't stop there. The room shifted and I was no longer in the present I dreamed of, but my son was standing before me as an adult. He was very beautiful with long hair in soft curls; it went halfway down his back. His eyes bored into me with a ferocious intelligence. His mouth opened and blood spewed out. He fell backward, dead, and I caught his body to find myself holding the Cerberus I knew. His innocent eyes, the eyes of children, stared up at me, and that was the only thing that forced me to realize this was a dream. Never had he looked upon me in innocence so pure; Midnight had tainted him…

            And I was on the floor of the cell with Midnight standing over me; blood was streaming from my lips, and a searing pain went through my body. I was horrified when I looked at him, and he smiled at me.

            "What… have… you… done…?" I whispered. Too pale, these hands I held before me; the darkness was too bright. "You condemned me to Hell."

            "There is no Hell."

            "Yes, there is."


	14. Part II: Intermission One

Authoress's Note: I don't own "Yu-Gi-Oh!" This is very short. It sort of breaks the syntax of the rest of the story, but I just had to put it in. I'm uploading it along with the Part II: Chapter 3 because it is so short and evil.

            Shadi was there.

            Damn, that guy was _everywhere. _

            I hated him.

            I _still want to paint him…_

            …Even if he is a melodramatic evil creativity-zapper.


	15. Part II: Chapter 4

Authoress's Note: Sorry for taking… um… almost a month to put this up. Really, I am… but here is the next part. I don't own "Yu-Gi-Oh!"

_"We were here, we were now_

_But now it's time to leave you be._

_Illusions will be there tomorrow;_

_You will still see her stare._

_He held himself with an air of pain,_

_And his likeness was that of one with nothing to gain._

_A child could have walked by on the street_

_And never known that he didn't meet_

_The white-haired daemon, the white shadow;_

_Death has decided you will see tomorrow._

_But is it really worth it?"_

- from "The White Shadow"

It seemed like no time had passed, but in fact, it must have been hours. He held a detached air about him like my fate was in his hands and he didn't care if I died or lived. 

I saw pure gold everywhere in the room with walls of a troubling burgundy. The ceiling was a huge mosaic of some ancient pharaoh with gold bangs and black hair that stuck up in large chunks; I saw part of a red streak. His eyes were a stunning violet that I had never seen; it had taken skills far beyond mine to make him seem so real that you could touch him.

            "Why should I spare him, Midnight?"

            His voice was like silk.

            "He is the one destined for the Sennan Eye."

            "You disobeyed me by changing him. He was meant to die, and if he deserved the Sennan Eye, he would have been reincarnated into a similar form."

            "He is the holder," Midnight said. "I told you I would help you find those whose destiny was to have an Item."

            "I told you I didn't need your help. He would have killed you after what you had done to him. You say he deserves an Item. Why didn't you bring him to me the moment you found him? I would have relished breaking him, but you were the one to try and do it, and your ways were clumsy. He was going to kill you."

            I felt a surge of anger. They were talking about me like I wasn't there. My hands balled into fists and I felt that emotion again, that anger.

            _His fingers went for my son's arm again; it was too soon after the last draining. I would have gladly taken my son's place, but __Midnight__ refused…_

            "He may have tried to kill me, but I love him."

            _I felt my hands ball into fists. My son let out a cry as the fangs sank in, and I felt __Midnight__ would go all the way. He was very hungry this night; if it weren't for the link between us, I couldn't have stopped him._

_            My hands closed on the top of a china vase. I came upon him with a fury, and as I slammed the vase onto his head, I let out a feral yell. There was blood all over his face, all over my hands. I was going to pound him into the ground until he couldn't hurt anyone ever again._

_            Cerberus fell back against the carpet and scrambled to his feet. As he did so, I found an antique sword against the wall. It was almost too heavy for me to hold because it was encrusted with heavy jewels, but I managed to strike him in the chest. I shoved the sword as deep as I could. _

_            "Die, you bastard," I hissed at him. I twisted the sword, for I knew he would heal around it, and twisting it would give me more time to get out._

            Shadi smiled at him. I shuddered. I felt so cold suddenly; there were large fingers of air ripping down my back and I thought I felt a hand grip my mind. 

            "I will punish you. You are in my world now, Midnight, and this world holds consequences for disobeying me. You can't leave until I'm finished with you."

            _My fingers closed around all the gold I could find. I instructed my son to do the same, all the while twisting the sword._

_            There was blood all over the floor, blood in my hair, on my hands, blood soaking into the carpet; it smelled like dead roses. I was aware of my son making noises as he stripped the house of everything he could find._

_Egypt__… I would go to __Egypt__ as Cynthia told me… I would not search for my daughter who didn't know I was her father. I would never see her or hurt her like I had hurt Cerberus. We would go to __Egypt__ and we would be safe. Cerberus was filling the sack with enough gold to fund our own expedition._

_            "Don't forget the jewels," I told him. Precious things like the sword would take a large price on the market._

_            I ripped off the leg of a chair in fury and yanked the sword out in a circular motion. Before the wound could close, I jammed the wood in and pressed my body weight against him. Blood began coming out of his mouth and his body began to shudder. Taking that as a good thing, I slammed it deeper and deeper until his body was totally still. _

_            I breathed out a sigh; my son touched my arm timidly. Then I realized I was on the floor. He must have thought I was hurt._

_            "Go get some changes of clothes. I need to clean up. We have to move as fast as we can. I don't think he is dead."_

_            They say that the best way to hurt you is to hurt someone you love._


	16. Part II: Chapter 5

Authoress's Note: I am a very bad girl. I haven't updated this thing in a loooooooong time… Well, our speech team only went to districts, we lost the first three soccer games of the season, I got a II+ at contest for my flute piece, Handel's Second Sonata. I won first place at a poetry contest. Um… yeah, and I have been very busy…

Well, the disclaimer STILL applies. Thanks for putting up with my tardy, irresponsible nature, people.

_"We are alone here,_

_Forgotten,_

_Shadows dancing across the walls_

_Like laughing demons._

_Don't suffer or they will forsake you;_

_Don't breathe or they will tame you._

_When the darkness descends,_

_Where can you turn?"_

- from "The White Shadow"

            I was led deep into the underground labyrinth; they blindfolded me to prevent me from seeing my surroundings. If I had known what was around me, escape would have been more likely than if I were blindly led through the passages.

            Even though I knew it was hopeless, I tried to memorize the steps I was taking. Long walk, right turn, staircase, left turn, another left turn, staircase that goes down to the right, long hallway, another set of staircases that was so long that I lost count, another long hallway, a right turn…

            Strong hands lifted me and the hands closed iron shackles around my wrists. The cold iron burned slightly, and somehow my mind registered that iron was wrong. There are so many legends that surround iron, aren't there? Iron negates magic, hurts unicorns, is the only way to kill several magical creatures… there are so many stories.

            Enough about the iron shackles. 

            I was alone in the dark, and there was nothing to see or hear but screams from other cells and vampires and humans in even worse shape than me. There may have been more, though, for if vampires can exist, why not shape shifters, doppelgangers, were-creatures, and elves?

            The mere thought of a doppelganger chills me.

            Stalking you at first, maybe a little interested in you, and they learn to be you to a fault. Then, when you least expect it, they strike and devour your body. They know you even better than you know yourself, and nobody will know it isn't you until the doppelganger makes the inevitable mistake. 

            Eventually, my thoughts blurred into a horrible dream. Every scream I heard that night was somehow amplified; I don't remember what the dream was about, but it was enough to make me scream when I woke up. The screaming could have been the result of the hunger I felt.

            It was worse than anything I had ever felt.

            Try to imagine being stuck with pins all over your body, having a magnet run over you, and a nameless parasite devouring your insides. Do you have that picture? Now add that to being in the desert at full sun with no water for about seven or eight hours.

            It didn't even numb like hunger is supposed to do. It kept growing.

            And on top of that, I was acutely aware of what was happening all around me. The insides of the shackles were studded with metal spikes, and there was blood running down my arms. I tried to push up with my feet, which I realized had either not been bound or had been taken off during my sleep, most likely the latter. It helped the pain, but I knew I couldn't do that forever.

            Hearts were beating everyone.

            _If this doesn't drive me insane, I don't know what will, I thought. _

            I closed my eyes again; I don't know how long they were closed, but when I looked up, there was gold light. From the center of the light, I saw a rotating eye, only it wasn't an eye; it was a golden ball.

            Weakly, I looked up at it; it was more like rolling my head to the side. The glowing became so bright that I needed to shield my eyes, but I couldn't raise my hands and the light was so intense that I could see it even when my eyes were closed.

            My eyes burned and there was a hiss as my skin darkened slightly to prevent me from burning to a cinder; I took it for granted back then. I never knew some idiot would give up our sunlight for the safety of the world. I don't know who it was; I think it was that tri-colored brat.

            I also think he killed Ryou Bakura.

            Well, before I get totally into the present, I have about two hundred years of past to go through.

            Ugh, right?

            That's what I was thinking, too.

            The golden light was still burning me.

            _I don't want to die, I thought. _

            _You won't die, then. My voice, yes; sometime in the past week or so I have decided that talking to myself is a great way to pass time. Something in it told me it wasn't just a response to being locked away._

            _"You are in my world now…"_

            The vaguest sense that the round eye was questioning me; I decided to risk opening my eyes. It wasn't like anything would change.

            I saw images in the light… and the images brought voices…

            _"Maxie-boy, when will you ever learn that running never solves anything?"_

_            "Don't call me Maxie-boy."_

_            "I will call you what I want to call you. You ran from me; did you think for a moment that you had killed me?"_

            I hesitated and looked at him; I made sure Cerberus was safely behind me. This was the outcome. At least I had seen Egypt; at least I had fulfilled the last promise…

            I grabbed Cerberus and tried to run past him, but he was there. He shoved me away from my boy and took him into a corner. _"You have disobeyed me for the last time, Pegasus."_

            My hands found the form of a lantern; it was warm to the touch, and I knew it was lit. I threw it at him before he could touch my son.

            _"Run!" I screamed._

            Voices, screaming in a language I could not understand, surrounded me. Midnight came at me again and I felt the searing pain of flames. There was the sensation of being thrown backwards through the window and I rolled into a small pool of water on the ground. It had just rained here, which was quite unusual. The rains had stopped earlier this evening.

            I recoiled from the vision; it hadn't taken me long to come to my senses. The damned eye was _pulling _me. I felt like my hands would be ripped off. 

            Do I even need to say that it hurt?

            Perhaps my cries stopped it. I heard another questioning emotion coming from it – like that thing could feel! – and there was more gold light. I then realized that it was actually _me _questioning _myself. _

            That was very frightening.

            _God, what have those monsters done to my son?_

            I had a feeling that the eye knew.

            The Millennium Eye _still_ knows stuff I don't know.

            Shadi said at a later date that I _was_ the spirit of that damned thing.

            Unless I have a split personality, it's not true.

            Not like anything he says is.

            I remember fading in and out as if I were intangible and ghostly; the gold light surrounded me, and sometimes it beat me when I felt like I would die. It kept me alive… and it tried to kill me… and it was breaking me…

            Hey, at least I was alive, unlike the others in the lower dungeon. I could feel their deaths.

            I also noticed that when they died, the eye glowed brighter. It somehow reminded me of the dying in the top floor, how they never moved or did anything, and how when I looked at them, their eyes were vacant. 

            Over the hum of the eye, I heard faint music. It was in my mind, but it was coming from all around me.

            _I've gone mad, I've gone insane, someone please lock me up… wait… I am_ locked up…__

            When I was young, I played the violin. As I aged, I played it more and more; the emotions I felt were locked in the violin and playing it was the only way to let them out. I broke about two strings per practice when I was feeling a passionate emotion, and sometimes when I was sad, the music would go so slow that people were astounded that I could even move the bow across the strings.

            Everything is a vent for some emotion. Opening the vent is the little problem; once it's open, you have to make sure you don't let out too much or you're so empty that someone could stick a knife in you and you would feel nothing: no pain, no blood running down your chest, just a horrible emptiness.

            When things got really bad with the abusive Midnight, I bought my own violin. It didn't cost me much; I pawned off a few antique rings he had in his possession. He never wore them, and he didn't care what I did as long as he never noticed what went on.

            I locked myself in my room and brushed my fingers over the instrument. My eyes shone with childlike delight, and my bruised fingers and muscles felt like they were screaming when I lifted up the light instrument. He kept me so weak back then so I could not fight back until he developed an interest in my son. 

My son was taught to play a variety of instruments, and, unlike me, when he made the slightest mistake in tone, he would be hit.

            Cerberus was three at the time, and it had been several years since I had poured out my emotions in a wave of crimson music. The last time I touched the violin was when I was still a teenager, and now I was twenty and my birthday would be in two months.

            It was a beautiful instrument, medium in quality, and so very beautiful with its dark stain and the carvings. I brought it up to my chin and I pressed my fingers down in a position; I didn't remember exactly how to do it. I brought the bow across the strings and I relaxed when I found that my lack of practice in the past few years had not negated my skill. 

            Playing brought back memories, and I recalled how I was a young child and I ran and smashed my violin against a rock when I was in a particularly foul mood. It brought tears to my eyes, tears that quickly melted into the music that my fingers were playing.

            My parents never understood; they thought I was a genius that could compose beautiful, moving pieces and play them.

            _I never played the violin. The violin played _me_. __Emotions played me. _Pain _played me. How someone could be named after a silver wingéd horse and play something so dark and depressing is beyond my comprehension._

            Light coming out of me, yes, light, but amplifying the light is a wave of darkness from me that swallows the feeble light whole, making you see light when there is almost none, and light I see when I see myself, and no one sees the darkness until it is too late to run and too late to hide and there is crimson flowing everywhere and Gods, I think I am going to become a sobbing heap. Not one God, either, but many gods that all hate me and want to see me break down and cry and I won't let them see me cry, I won't let them see me cry, I won't let them see me cry salty tears…

            And I saw myself reach for the violin, which wasn't there but it was on the floor. And Midnight was there, and he held me against him and did not hurt me. The violin was in his hands now, and he pressed it against my chest and whispered, _yes, the music is beautiful, play more, play a lot more, play it until I cry and fly into a rage…_

            But it wasn't real, and it faded away and I realized that I was hanging off of a cell wall and I had no idea how many days or months or years had passed, just that there was nothing but darkness everywhere and then the gold light, streaming from the eye, cradling me, and Midnight's voice calling to me from some other place, screaming, and me crying and sobbing and wishing I had never been born.

            Sometimes really pathetic people can do really colossal things, no matter how evil or dark those things are, no matter how many people die. Just look at me.


	17. Part II: Chapter 6

Authoress's Note: Hi everyone! Sorry it took so long to update. We had a tornado, blew down several houses, power out for a few days… no, really, we did. Today's the first day with real Internet access, so I decided to be a good girl and post this. I should be making more updates in the summer due to more free time. I'm taking a break right now from cramming for my art final tomorrow and I have to go on the computer later and type up a report on 'Omar Khayyam. So, anyway, I don't own "Yu-Gi-Oh!" Oh, and will someone please tell me what's happened in the last few episodes? I kind of… missed them…

_Now we dance,_

_Cold lips moving together._

_One chilled with ice,_

_The other the ice._

_One chilled by what isn't to be known,_

_The other preserved by ice for eternity._

_They twirl about,_

_Two silent-lipped lovers_

_In a sea of malevolence._

_Make it go away._

- from "The White Shadow"

            He was there when I opened my eyes.

            Not Shadi. Not Midnight.

            There were guards, of course, but he was there and he was with me. My veins throbbed under the stress of having a meal so close by, and I thanked the chains for this. 

            "Father," he said.

            "Cerberus," I replied weakly.

            I decided to look upon him in that moment. He had changed; obviously many years had gone by in my delirium. How had I survived for so long, chained to a wall, nothing there to support me? Then I remembered the eye, and I felt its power over me, and my conscience was screaming at me and my hunger was howling at me…

            He must have been about fourteen or fifteen.

            Damn, how long _was_ I hanging off of that wall?

            I felt pain when he touched my arms. He pressed himself close to me and looked into my eyes. He had beautiful eyes, and his skin was warm to the touch. He looked a lot like me, but his voice was Midnight's voice, and his skin was too pale. Human, of course – what else would he be? – but he was my son.

            When I looked closely at him, I saw the bruises and knife marks up and down his arms. He noticed these, too, and he tried to pull down his sleeves, but it really was too late to do anything about it. It made my blood boil.

            "Who did that to you?" I asked him. "Was it Shadi?"

            His eyes widened with surprise. "No, it was not Shadi."

            "Midnight, then."

            "No, Father."

            "Then who the Hell did it?" I whispered, half to myself.

            His bruised reddish-gold eyes focused on the ground, then moved to the wall slightly to my left. I could feel him tremble, and I understood what had gone on. He was very beautiful, and in a place with these barbarians, of course it could have come to pass.

            "The guards," he said, "and some of the guests; Midnight wants Shadi to tell them all to stop, but he won't." His voice was faltering; it was a mixture of a falsetto and his high tenor. "And Shadi sent me down here now. He wanted me to come to you. He wouldn't let Midnight come down. Midnight fought with him for almost an hour and there were loud crashing sounds from the room. I think Midnight broke one of Shadi's favorite vases. He's going to be punished later."

            I don't think any news from Shadi could be worse than learning that my son was forced to sleep around and make people happy.

            When I am hungry, I get really cranky. Because I had not had any form of nourishment for nine years, I was feeling murderous. There were three things going through my mind at that moment:

1. _What does Shadi want from me? Hasn't he done enough?_

2. _They will pay for raping my son._

3. _Someone is going to _die_._

_            Might as well get my question out of the way… _"What does Shadi want?" 

"I don't know. I heard some stuff in the other room, but I will not say it. He doesn't like it when I tell people too much. He wants to see you. He sent me down to get you out, and he says that someone will have to die. He told me to run once they unlock you."

            "Why didn't you do it while I was asleep?"

            "I haven't spoken to you in nine years, Father."

            "Let the guards in to let me out," I told him, "and run as fast as you can. I don't trust myself alone with you at the moment."

            He nodded. "I know what Midnight did to you."

            "Aren't you afraid?"

            "Of course I'm afraid, but what's the point?"

            _If I hadn't been so weak, I could have saved us from this fate._

_            You are afraid…_

_            Of course I'm afraid!_

_            You never listen to me, Pegasus. I'm your conscience, the thing that sits on your shoulder and tells you the difference between right and wrong. Fear destroys; it doesn't protect. I think you should listen to your son._

Cerberus was not there when I finally came to. I felt the keys click as the guards released me, and they both tried to back away. I wasn't aware of what happened; one of them was dead in my arms and there was blood on my lips.

            I dropped him and stood. The wounds on my wrists where the jagged metals had pierced my skin had disappeared; pale white scars would serve as a reminder of what pain is and how when you are completely zoned out, time can pass by quickly. I know it sounds stupid; just think of it as a souvenir that I really don't want.

            _A conscience is a stupid, feeble thing to have. It won't get you anywhere in the world._

_            Whatever…_

_            Leave me alone._


	18. Part II: Chapter 7

Authoress's Note: Well, I'm sure my fans are all wondering why this took so long… *takes out my big, long list of excuses* Well… I started working, I got out of school, there is something wrong with my left hand (writing hand): the wrist hurts and I need a brace for it. My right arm recently suffered an injury involving a funny bone and the end of a metal shelf, full contact, lots of pain, and now I can't put my elbow down on anything and the pinkie side of my right lower arm is numb. And then there is this thing I've had for three weeks and I'm STILL not over it! And then this wouldn't upload…

Disclaimer: I do not own "Yu-Gi-Oh!"

_                                                                                                    "I am White Shadow,_

_                                                                                                Ever moving, ever turning,_

_                                                                                       Twirling in a vehement sea of disunity._

_                                                                                                      I am White Shadow,_

_                                                                                               Laughing demon of the sky,_

_                                                                                               And you must say good-bye_

_                                                                                            To all your cares and dreams…"_

                                                                                                               - from "The White Shadow"

            He led me to a room with whitewashed walls and gilded ceiling murals. It wasn't very impressive. In fact, it barely even registered in my mind. 

            "Maxamillion James Pegasus."

            The doors closed behind me. I turned to the left and wondered why he was going to such lengths to keep me in. 

            Shadi was sitting on a gilded chair like a pharaoh. He was smoking something, most likely a New World product, and the smoke curled around his form. He wasn't wearing the turban. His head was covered in hair.

            I didn't like the room. It was too dark for me to be comfortable. Ever since Cynthia died, the dark brought hallucinations of her in a coffin with the worms crawling all over her and consuming her beauty until she was reduced to bone, and then even that was gone and there was only dust, dust, dust. 

            "Do you know why you are here?" he asked.

            No, I did not know. I remained silent. Whatever it was, I had already deduced the following things:

1. It was going to involve pain.

2. Shadi was going to be the one responsible for the pain.

3. I would be a mess when it finally ended. Wait, I already was a mess, so that wouldn't be much of a change…

"Because you have not answered me, I will assume you already know why I have brought you here."

            "No. But whatever it is, I don't like it." 

            I hated having shorter hair; unfortunately, vampiric hair doesn't grow at all. I had shorter hair to please Cynthia when we were together. She liked running her fingers with it, and we would sit under the trees and I would paint her. My paintings were everywhere in that town. 

            Damn. I could have been famous as an artist. I am pretty sure nobody in the area knows what the little artistic scribble in the corner of the painting is when they stare at her perfect form at the inn, the angel sent from Heaven dashed against the wall, the very portrait of everything that is defined as feminine Beauty rolled into one.

            And Bakura is – was – masculine Beauty so perfect that everyone on the street stared at him. He made ripples on the street when he walked past, though he was blissfully unaware of what he could do to others. It's no wonder he was changed, for the beauty was amplified and it made me see him, lost and alone, on the street. The two Bakuras; are they really dead? I sometimes think I see his face in the window now… or maybe it's just a trick of my Eye. Millennium Eye. Sennan Eye. 

            I sometimes wear my real eye now instead of the Millennium-Sennan Eye. 

            But I was standing in that room now. The Eye had already declared ownership of me, but I did not know it. I thought the golden light in my cell had been God finally deciding I was worth saving. 

            There was a gold glint in his hand. I stared at it and backed away. I didn't want to know what it was. I didn't need to know what it was. I wanted to run back to that cell and lock myself inside. 

            "Midnight Blue," Shadi said.

            He had been hiding in the darkness (one more reason for me to really hate it) and he had been so good at it that not even his own creation knew he had been hiding there.

            Midnight walked to the throne; I was engrossed in his movements. He went down on one knee and tilted his head downward; his black hair spilled over his shoulders. The sight was like a hand running down my spine. I shuddered with ecstasy. 

            "My Lord Shadi," he whispered. I could sense his fear; his voice was quivering almost imperceptibly. "What is it you want me to do?"

            Shadi revealed a golden dagger with hieroglyphics etched on the gold blade; the hilt was encrusted with jewels. He leveled his eyes at me and said in a carefully controlled voice, "Take out his eye."

            Midnight's mouth dropped open. He mouthed, "But," only no sound came out. His eyes darted from me to Shadi. "W-which one?" he asked. 

            "It doesn't matter."

            He took the blade from Shadi, acting like it was a poisonous snake, and reluctantly moved towards me. His face was horrifying: an immortal grimace, probably from the idea of seeing an empty socket.

            "I…"

            "Yes, Midnight Blue?" His voice held a threat…

            There was nothing I could have done at that moment, nothing that could have raced through my mind in those precious seconds. I saw Shadi and Midnight; Midnight was holding my shoulder and slowly advancing the blade. 

            I saw a small gold glimmer when Shadi opened his hand and felt a stab of pain when the blade went into my eye. It wasn't normal pain; it was electric. I wanted it out and I wanted it out at that second. It didn't matter if my eye came with it…

            And yet I did not scream, but I heard my voice let out an enormous cry. My voice, but not my cry, and Midnight echoed the cry with his raw screams. I held my empty socket; the lid hadn't closed over it. There was blood pouring over my fingertips, and I could see through my good eye.

            Shadi threw the Millennium-Sennan eye in the air, and it felt like hours before it finally reached me. It came at my level, the eyelike part facing me, and when it was an inch from my face the world burst like glass. It shattered reality and Midnight melted away, but even after it was all gone I could hear Shadi's laughter. The Eye glowed brighter and it pulsated with each breath I took.

            A great monster reared up before me, a monster that had no place anywhere in reality, and even more monstrous because its face looked like Cynthia's face. Her sockets were covered with and her lips were as red as blood; she held her eyes in her hand. The eyeless sockets opened, but instead of the emptiness, there was a brilliant blue light. Her form was blown by unseen winds and the Eye was furious with her presence… _I_ was furious…

            Red light began to engulf her, and I recognized this light as fire, and through the crackle she laughed…

            _"I sssseeeeee you…"_

            Everything went black.


	19. Part II: Chapter 8

Authoress's Note: *huge sigh* This has been a really trying time. I was on a short vacation last week and I just started to get organized. I think this story is actually coming rather well… most of the faults have been due to my identity crisis, Awakening, and the inconsistencies in my personality (I'm clumsy but I have good balance… try that one on for size…). I might post another chapter in a few days. I'm actually writing in Part 3 now; I like to stay ahead of the post as a sort of safety net.

As I have stated in previous chapters, I do not own "Yu-Gi-Oh!" 

                                "_Nothing you have will save you from my touch._

_                                                  Does it matter very much?_

_                                                       I am White Shadow,_

_                                                 I am the laughing phantom,_

_                                                     I am the White Demon_

_                                                        Hiding in the sand,_

_                                             Feeding on your dreams and love._

_                                        Listen to the voices in your head scream._

_                                                      I am White Shadow._"

                                                                – from "The White Shadow"

            I was back with Cynthia, and it was almost time to wake up. I could feel her form against me and I also felt the roughness of the mattress. The light came in through the window: soft at first, then brighter as the sun rose in the sky. 

            She moved slightly, and I wondered what she was dreaming, but I didn't open my eyes. I wanted to fall asleep again and dream about the gold light again. I always had dreams about the gold light. Cynthia said it was nothing. She wanted me to draw gold light around her in the painting. I made a wreath for her and she would wear it in the painting; we would eat apples under a tree and drink slightly fermented white grape juice from the vineyard close to town. Never red grape juice, and certainly not wine; it reminded me of Midnight too much.

            The light on my face faded, and I thought it was the passing of a cloud, but there was a cold feeling creeping over my skin. I rubbed my arms and opened my eyes. We were not in my bed, and there was a skeleton with long blonde hair and blue eyes hugging me. I screamed and threw it away. The skeleton's bones cracked and sanguine – blood – flowed across the dry, gray ground. Rose bushes with thorns grew where the sanguine soaked into the ground, roses with black petals blooming before my very eyes.

            Her form fleshed out, and there was a small wound on her neck from which the liquid flowed, and the sight and smell filled me with hunger, and I knew again what I was, though I didn't know why I was here. Everything was happening so fast.

            The rose bushes began to grow over her. "Help me!" she screamed. Her voice was shrill and harsh. "Pegasus!"

            I rushed over to the bushes, but they cut my hands. I tried to pull them out, and my fingers brushed against one of the roses. It wound its way around my wrist and the dark, vampiric blood was drawn; droplets fell onto Cynthia's perfect skin. 

            "Help me!" 

            She was almost covered with the black rose bushes. Her hand reached out for me, and I grabbed it and tried to pull, but a choking yell stopped me. The roses had wound their way around her throat, and her face was turning blue. Blood was streaming down her neck.

            I heard another cry behind me. There stood a young girl, no older than my son, and she looked exactly like me, only her hair went to her cheekbones in a straight bowl cut. I would have mistaken her for a boy if she hadn't screamed.

            "You killed her!"

            The girl ran at me and I saw the knife in her hands. I was powerless against her innocent radiance, the way she stabbed me. "Murderer! I hate you! You killed her even though you loved her! IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT!"

            I found her name with my mind. "Please, Jasmine…"

            "NO!" 

            She ran from me…

            "Jasmine!"

            "You killed her! I hate you! I hate you! I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!" She threw something at me, a long spike, and it wound up impaling me. I staggered backward and the sharp end hit the ground. She had a mallet and she pounded it into the ground. "Take that, demon vampire!"

            There was white light coming out of her, and it burnt me… there was fire everywhere…

            Only I was thrashing around on a soft pallet, and half of me was on the stone. Midnight was holding me down while trying not to get hurt. His hand was around my throat.

            **_Why won't he stop it?_ I heard his thoughts like a voice, and there were images with his thoughts. I didn't want to see some of those images. For one thing, he was getting a little… aroused… sitting on me.**

            "Pegasus, it is just me, Midnight…"

            There was something hard and metallic in my left eye. 

            I was very hungry.

            "Why?" I asked.

            He was silent… well… almost… **_Gods, I wish he wouldn't ask me all of these questions. Why should I know these things? How can anyone know these things? If he asks me that again, I am going to…_**

            "I don't know."

            My thoughts: _Please make him shut up, please make him shut up, please make him shut up, please make him shut up…_

            Well, I was in no danger from suffering from ennui… I guess _that was a good thing… It was just so hard to think while being assaulted by all of those thoughts and feelings from everyone around me. I needed to block it somehow. The thoughts were enough to drive me insane, and the feelings were even worse than the thoughts. I could hardly tell what I was feeling and what Midnight was feeling._

            In other words, his arousal was making me feel aroused. Yeah. Right. Let's just put it that way. 

            _Metallic thing where my left eye is, PLEASE MAKE THEM SHUT UP!_


End file.
